Application of electrical capacitance tomography for measurement of gas-solids flow

characteristics in a pneumatic conveying system

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2001 Meas. Sci. Technol. 12 1109
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INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS PUBLISHING MEASUREMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Meas. Sci. Technol. 12 (2001) 11091119 www.iop.org/Journals/mt PII: S0957-0233(01)22190-0
Application of electrical capacitance
tomography for measurement of
gassolids ow characteristics in a
pneumatic conveying system
Artur J Jaworski
1
and Tomasz Dyakowski
2,3
1
School of Engineering, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
2
Department of Chemical Engineering, UMIST, PO Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK
E-mail: a.jaworski@man.ac.uk and t.dyakowski@umist.ac.uk
Received 22 February 2001, in nal form 29 May 2001, accepted for
publication 13 June 2001
Abstract
Transient three-dimensional multiphase ows are a characteristic feature of
many industrial processes. The experimental observations and
measurements of such ows are extremely difcult, and industrial process
tomography has been developed over the last decade into a reliable method
for investigating these complex phenomena. Gassolids ows, such as those
in pneumatic conveying systems, exhibit many interesting features and these
can be successfully investigated by using electrical capacitance tomography.
This paper discusses the current state of the art in this eld, advantages and
limitations of the technique and required future developments. Various
levels of visualization and processing of tomographic data obtained in a
pilot-plant-scale pneumatic conveying system are presented. A case study
outlining the principles of measuring the mass ow rate of solids in a
vertical channel is shown.
Keywords: solids concentration, solids velocity, mass ow rate, tomography,
correlation, pneumatic transport
1. Introduction
Transient three-dimensional multiphase ows are a character-
istic feature of many industrial processes. The experimental
observations and measurements of such ows are extremely
difcult, and industrial tomography has been developed over
the last decade into a reliable method for investigating these
complex phenomena [1, 2]. Various levels of visualization of
data can be extracted from tomograms. Images can charac-
terize the behaviour of the ow at a single level (or plane) as
it varies with time and therefore allow distinguishing between
different ow patterns. Individual images can reveal impor-
tant cross-sectional information such as the concentration of
solids in gassolids systems. A set of successive images, for
known velocities of solids, can be transformed into the three-
dimensional distribution of solids along the direction of ow
to provide additional body shape type information similar to
3
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
that obtained from conventional photography. However, there
are important differences between data obtained from the two
techniques and these are discussed in more detail in section 3.
On the micro-scale, the motion of a particle is governed
by various types of particleparticle and particleuid
interactions. On the macro-scale, these are responsible for
the appearance of various types of macro-structures in the
ow with characteristic sizes much larger than the diameter
of the particles. Pneumatic conveying is usually classied into
two categories: dilute (or lean) and dense phase [3]. In
dilute-phase conveying the particles are usually transported
in the form of a suspension with the concentrations of solids
typically below 10%. On the other hand, dense-phase
transport is usually understood as the conveying of particles
along a pipe, which is lled with particles at one or more cross
sections [4]. Flow patterns in a dense pneumatic conveying
system exhibit many interesting features and analogies with
gasliquid ows. Typically, materials conveyed in a dense-
0957-0233/01/081109+11$30.00 2001 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK 1109
A J Jaworski and T Dyakowski
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100 L
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ELECTRONIC
CONTROLLER
4
-
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A
AIR
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8 bar g
oil free air
Blower
unit
100 L
Sonic
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Approx. 7 m
Rotary
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Upper tank
Lower tank
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PNEUMATIC
CONVEYING
FLOW LOOP
AIR SUPPLY
Removable
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Removable
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Load
cell
Load
cell
PG PS
PS - Pressure overload switch
PG - Pressure gauge
PT - Pressure transducer
Bleed
valve
4
-
2
0

m
A
Figure 1. A schematic diagram of the UMIST dense-phase pneumatic conveying rig.
phase system are not very cohesive and exhibit a permeability
and de-aeration rate that are either both low(for a moving bed)
or both high (for slug or plug ow). High permeability and
de-aeration rates characterize polyamide chips, so the modes
of a dense transport of these chips are discussed in this paper.
When the gas velocity is reduced below the saltation
velocity, a settled layer of solids is formed at the bottom of
a horizontal pipe. The transport of solids occurs through the
propagation of ow instabilities referred to as slugs[57].
These pick up the solids from the settled layer and convey
them along the pipe for some distance. The slug propagation
velocity is higher than the axial velocity of solids and the solids,
after being mixed within the slug body, are dropped off to form
a settled layer behind the slug. The slope at the back of the
slug is usually steeper than the slug front.
In vertical pipelines, the behaviour of the solid particles is
somewhat different. The ow instabilities responsible for the
net transport of solids take the formof nearly axis-symmetrical
discrete plugs, which move upwards along the pipe [8]. The
consecutive plugs are separated from one another by an air
gap. Flowvisualizations reveal that the solid particles can rain
down from the back of the preceding onto the following plug.
In both cases, the horizontal and the vertical transport, the ow
instabilities described exhibit a quasi-periodic behaviour with
a frequency typically in the region between fractions of a hertz
and a few hertz.
Granular materials conveyed in the pipelines are usually
relatively dry and can be assumed electrically non-conductive.
Moreover, their bulk dielectric constant is rather low, typically
between 1.5 and 5. Therefore, electrical capacitance
tomography (ECT) seems to be ideally suited for investigating
this type of ow [913]. Typically, ECT systems operate at a
frame capture rate of up to 200 frames s
1
, which allows one to
reproduce the ow patterns observed with sufcient accuracy,
the additional advantage, of course, being the possibility of
reconstructing the internal structure of the ow from the
distribution of dielectric permittivity in the cross-sectional
image.
The main problem with measuring multiphase ows is
associated with the fact that both the phases distribution
and the velocity prole vary widely both in the temporal
and the spatial sense. The development of the so-called
twin-plane tomographic instruments, potentially offers an
excellent opportunity to develop techniques for measuring
the velocity eld by cross-correlating, on a pixel-by-pixel
basis, the time series of tomographic images obtained. The
concept of such systems was described for example in [1, 2, 14]
and was successfully implemented in the area of hydraulic
conveying by Loh et al [15]. However, attempts to apply
the cross-correlation for measuring the mass ow rates of
solids in pneumatic conveying systems achieved only limited
success [16]. A more detailed discussion on the suitability
of twin-plane tomography and correlation techniques for
measuring mass ow rates is given in [17].
The objective of this work was to investigate the
complexities of ow morphology in dense pneumatic
conveying systems. This was done by using two
complementary techniques: a high-speed video camera (up
to 500 frames s
1
) and a twin-plane ECT system (with a
capture rate of 100 frames s
1
). A comparison between
the ow visualizations obtained using these two techniques
is provided. The prospects of using twin-plane ECT for
measuring mass owrates of solids, are discussed, a theoretical
analysis is outlined and preliminary results concerned with
ow measurement within a vertical pipe to obtain estimates of
the mass owrate of solids are presented. The results obtained
1110
Gassolids ow characteristics
(a)
(b)
Figure 2. The removable Perspex section (a) with sliding ECT
sensor (b).
also allowus to discuss the future developments needed for the
ECT system.
2. Experimental details
Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the pneumatic conveying
ow rig at the Department of Chemical Engineering, UMIST.
The solids are fed into the system from the bottom tank by
means of a rotary feeder. They are then conveyed along a 7 m
long horizontal section, a 3 m long vertical section and a 7 m
long return line and discharged into the top tank. The capacity
of the tanks is 100 l each (approximately 55 kg of granular
material). The internal diameter of the stainless steel pipeline
is 57 mm.
The top tank is suspended on three load cells, to allow
on-line weighing of the solids collected in the tank. This is
necessary in order to allow an independent measurement of
the mass ow rate of solids and thus validate the ow rates
of solids obtained from other methods. The mass ow rate
of solids is calculated as the increase of the mass of the top
tank divided by the time elapsed from the moment the gate
valve between the top and bottom tank had been shut. The
granules used at present are polyamide chips of approximate
dimensions 3 mm 3 mm 1 mm. The maximum feed for
the granular material used is approximately 900 kg h
1
.
The gas stream is introduced into the system by an 11 kW
blower and then it passes through a cooler to avoid overheating
the rig. The gas ow rate through the rig is independent of the
solids ow. This is achieved by using a sonic nozzle, which
means that the gas ow rate is controlled only by the pressure
upstream of the nozzle. This is set by adjusting a bleeding
valve coupled with a pressure transducer. The gas velocity (for
an empty pipe) can be varied between 1.0 and 5.0 m s
1
by
inserting three different sonic nozzles and varying the control
pressure.
The ow rig is equipped with three removable sections.
Each can be replaced by either a glass viewing section for ow
visualization purposes or a transparent Perspex section with a
sliding twin-plane ECT sensor for tomographic measurements
(gure 2).
The high-speed video recordings were made using a
NAC500camera capable of capturingimages at 500frames s
1
and storing them in an electronic format. 7800 images can
be stored for an individual recording, giving a recording
time of about 15 s. The tomographic images were obtained
using a PTL 300 twin-plane tomography system [18] capable
of collecting up to 100 images s
1
from both planes
simultaneously. A tomographic sensor containing two planes
of eight sensing electrodes is shown schematically in gure 3.
The sensing planes are 130 mm apart (centre to centre) and
this distance is used in correlation analysis (further discussion
related to this issue is provided in section 3). The details
of operation of the tomography system and procedures for
designing an ECT sensor can be found elsewhere [1820].
In ECT measurements, an important step is the calibration
of the sensor. The capacitance readings are taken for (i) an
empty pipe and then (ii) the pipe lled with granular material.
On the basis of this calibration procedure, any images obtained
(such as those presented in the following sections) are shown
in terms of normalized dielectric permittivity, between 0 and
1. It should be pointed out that, for granular materials,
bulk properties (rather than material properties) are used.
Consequently, the term pipe lled with material denotes a
mixture of air and plastic granules in the form of a settled
bed, which is associated with the value of 1 for the normalized
dielectric permittivity on tomographic images. Given that the
bulk density of polyamide chips used is 556 kg m
3
, while
the density of the material itself is 1020 kg m
3
, it is easy to
calculate the porosity of such a settled bed as approximately
45%.
Inpractice, the calibrationprocedure is more difcult. The
sensor is mounted on the Perspex pipe forming part of the ow
rig. It is always possible to remove the solids from the ow rig
and calibrate the sensor for an empty pipe; however, lling the
pipe with a settled bed of particles is not straightforward. To
achieve this, the owconditions inthe rig(the feedof solids and
gas ow rate) are selected such that a blockage occurs within
the pipeline. After a few attempts, it is possible to obtain a
situationinwhichthe pipe sectionwiththe sensor is completely
lled. This is usedas the secondpoint incalibration. Of course,
it still may be a matter of controversy whether the settled bed
obtained under blockage conditions is similar to that obtained
in an ex situ controlled experiment.
1111
A J Jaworski and T Dyakowski
Figure 3. The design of the twin-plane ECT sensor.
Figure 4. High-speed camera visualization of the slug ow in the horizontal pipe.
3. Results and discussion
Qualitative and quantitative data were obtained during the
experimental programme. The rst conrmed the applicability
of the ECT system for investigations of transient and three-
dimensional gassolids ows. Here we are presenting the
gassolids ow morphology in a vertical and a horizontal
channel. The latter is congruent with the earlier publications,
e.g. [1012]. The ow structure in a vertical channel exhibits
many interesting features, in particular a bi-directional ow
sequence. Quantitative analysis was focused on applying the
ECT system for measurement of the mass-ow of solids. The
theoretical analysis is presented and simplications made in
the current study are introduced and discussed in some detail.
3.1. Characterization of ow patterns
The owpatterns inthe pneumatic conveyingwere investigated
both for horizontal and for vertical sections (see gure 1).
Figure 4 shows a series of six photographs illustrating the
passage of two consecutive slugs through the viewing section
in the horizontal pipe. A few interesting features are worth
mentioning. Firstly, the structure of the two slugs is slightly
different. The rst slug lls the pipe completely and exhibits
rather clearly dened boundaries of the front and the tail.
This is not true for the following slug. A thin layer of gas
and suspended particles can be seen in the upper part of the
pipe, above the main body of the slug. The front of the
slug appears less clearly dened and it looks as though the
material at the front of the slug is trying to catch up with the
preceding slug. Secondly, referring to the front of the rst
slug, it can be seen that its slope can vary rather fast (compare
photographs (a) and (b)). Thirdly, the thickness of the settled
layer separating the two slugs evolves and becomes thinner
from one photograph to another (compare photographs (b)
(e)). The latter is accompanied by an increase in the distance
separating the two slugs. Finally, it is also worth noting that
clusters of particles are present immediately before the fronts
of both slugs described.
Figure 5 shows a time series of cross-sectional
tomographic images corresponding to the slug ow presented
in gure 4. The rst seven images showthe transition between
a half-lled pipe and a fully lled pipe that corresponds to the
passage of the slug front. Similarly, the last four images show
the passage of the slugs tail through the measurement plane.
All images in between correspond to the slug passing through
the sensing plane (images between t = 0.12 s and t = 0.29 s
are omitted to save space).
Applying a twin-plane system allows reproducing the
shape of the slugs as presented in gure 6. Here, the pixels
lying along a vertical line passing through the centre are
selected from each frame. These are combined to give a
longitudinal cross section of the slug. Figure 6 illustrates
the problems encountered by the ECT measurement. These
relate to the limited spatial resolution of the images in the
cross-sectional plane, averaging of the concentration of solids
along the nite length of the electrodes (in our case 3 cm) and
smearing of the sharp boundaries between the phases. This is
why gure 6 shows shades of grey, instead of sharp boundaries.
1112
Gassolids ow characteristics
Figure 5. A series of ECT images corresponding to the passage of a slug through the sensor. (Images between t = 0.12 s and t = 0.29 s are
omitted since they show fully lled pipe (black).)
Figure 6. The longitudinal cross section of the slug ow obtained
from the tomograms. The data were obtained by extracting pixels
from the vertical axis of each tomogram and combining them as a
time series.
Figure 7. The shape of slugs obtained by thresholding the data from
gure 6.
Of course, one of the methods used to extract sharp
boundaries between the phases fromthe ECT images is the so-
called thresholding. The areas of the normalized dielectric
permittivity above the threshold (e.g. 0.5) are represented in
black, while the areas of the permittivity below threshold are
shown in white. An illustration of this method is shown in
gure 7. It can be seen that the shape of the slug body can
(a) (b)
Figure 8. Still photographs showing plugs travelling upwards (a)
and material dropping downwards in between the trains of plugs (b).
be determined, of particular interest being the slopes of the
front and tail of the slug. These exhibit many similarities
to the photographs shown in gure 4. Of course, the spatial
resolution does not allowimaging of the presence of individual
particles or particle clusters as can be seen on a high-speed
video recording.
In the experiments conducted in the vertical pipe, the
owpatterns observed were generally in agreement with those
described in the literature. The conveying of solids typically
consisted of two distinctive phases. A train of a few plugs,
1113
A J Jaworski and T Dyakowski
Figure 9. The cross-sectional distribution of dielectric permittivity for upward plug ow (a) and downward return of material (b).
each approximately 1020 cmlong, appeared on average every
34 s. It could be seen that some particles rain down from
the preceding onto the following plug. At the end of each
passage some granular material (most probably from the tail
of the train) dropped downwards under the gravity. This was
collected at the bottom of the vertical section and was picked
up by the next train of plugs. Figure 8 shows four photographs
taken from the high-speed video, which show a typical ow
pattern observed.
Again, the use of ECT allows looking into the internal
structure of the plugs, which would not be possible using
photographic techniques. Figure 9 gives examples of the cross-
sectional distribution of the normalized dielectric permittivity
due to material present in the sensing area. Figure 9(a)
corresponds to the plugs travelling upwards. Images 26 and
1012 correspond to the plugs present in the sensing area,
whereas images 1, 7, 8 and 9 show the spaces between the
two consecutive plugs. Figure 9(b) shows the permittivity
distribution for material dropping down between two trains
of plugs.
Figure 10 shows the axial cross section of the ow
reconstructed from the ECT measurements. It is worth noting
that the ECT reconstruction reects the changes in porosity
of the material within the plugs. It can be inferred that the
density increases towards the pipe wall, which most probably
corresponds to an increase in inter-particle stresses. The
centre of the plug, on the other hand, seems more porous,
probably due to the passage of the gas through the centre of
the plug. For the downward movement of the material the
highest concentration is usually close to the wall; however,
the location of the region of the highest concentration moves
around the circumference of the pipe.
Of course, on the fundamental level, the information
obtained from the ow visualizations (gures 4 and 8) is
different fromthat obtained by combining tomographic images
such as those shown in gures 6, 7 and 10. Whereas the
photographs showthe spatial information at a given instant, the
tomographic results represent the temporal changes at a given
spatial location (that of the sensor). The two approaches would
be equivalent only if the ow structures were frozen while
moving along the pipe. Although this is not necessarily true in
the pneumatic conveyingsystem, it is worthnotingthe apparent
similarities betweenthe photographs andthe tomographic data.
Of course, using a twin-plane tomographic system allows
obtaining the time delay between the appearance of slugs
or plugs in respective planes and therefore the propagation
velocity of slugs. The length of the slug can then be calculated
as the time that the slug was present in one of the planes
multiplied by the propagation velocity.
It is apparent that, despite difculties encountered in
the ECT measurements (reconstruction algorithm errors,
averaging along the electrodes), the technique can provide
1114
Gassolids ow characteristics
(a) (b)
Figure 10. Temporal changes in the permittivity distribution across
the diameter of the pipe: (a) upwards travelling plugs and
(b) material falling downwards.
unique information about the structure and the evolution of
three-dimensional and unsteady gassolids ow. In order to
provide more reliable information about the ow phenomena,
some more work is required in order to relate the measured
dielectric permittivity distribution to the concentration of
solids. This is of vital importance from the viewpoint both of
theoretical modelling and of the validation of computational
uid dynamics (CFD) codes.
3.2. Flow measurements
As discussed in the introduction, one of the attractive ideas for
multiphase ow measurement that still has to be investigated
is the use of twin-plane tomography systems and cross-
correlation techniques. The concept itself is not novel. In
uid mechanics cross-correlation of pressure and velocity
uctuations has been for many decades a standard technique
for investigating the ows within a boundary layer [21] and
for tracking the movement of coherent structures shed by
aerodynamic bodies [22]. In the area of multiphase ows
the velocity eld can be measured by cross-correlating the
time-varying signal arising from one phase being dispersed
in another (e.g. gas bubbles in liquid) [23]. Some obvious (but
often tacit) assumptions made while measuring the velocity
eld by cross-correlation techniques are that
(i) the sensors size is small relative to their separation;
(ii) there are measurable disturbances in the ow eld being
investigated and
(iii) the velocity eld (convection velocity) can be associated
with the propagation velocity of these disturbances
It can easily be seen that the rst assumption is not strictly
satised by the ECT sensor. The sensing electrodes have a
nite length (in our case 3 cm), which is often comparable to
the separation (in our case 13 cm, the centre-to-centre distance
betweenthe planes). Insimple terms, it couldbe arguedthat the
ECT system detects the disturbance for the rst time, while it
crosses the upstream end of plane 1. Similarly, it can detect its
presence for the last time when it crosses the downstream end
of plane 2. In these circumstances, it is not clear whether the
centre-to-centre distance is the most appropriate for calculating
propagation velocities of the disturbances. In general, this
problem is caused by the spatial averaging taking place along
the electrodes.
The detection of disturbances caused by gassolids
interaction is not straightforward. Two facts need to be
remembered: rstly, that an ECT system has a spatial
resolution of about 10% of the pipe diameter; and secondly,
that the electrodes are rather long. Consequently, the sensing
volume within which detection takes place is large and there is
no way of detecting individual particles. Instead, an average
concentration of solids in a rather large control volume is
measured. This, of course, creates problems from the point
of view of correlation analysis. For example, it is not possible
to detect whether the settled layer at the bottomof the pipe is in
motion or stationary (tomography provides a constant signal).
Similarly, situations in which the systemis nearly blocked (i.e.
the pipe is lled completely with stationary, or slowly moving,
material) can be ambiguous for the purposes of correlation.
Finally, the problems are compounded by the fact that
the gassolids structures do exhibit wavelike behaviour. The
classic example here is the propagation of slugs in the
horizontal pipeline. Here the velocity of material (plastic
pellets) cannot be directly linked to the propagation velocity
of the disturbances in the ow (slugs). Of course, it is possible
to measure the propagation velocity of the slugs (or, in other
words, how quickly the wavefronts are moving), but, strictly,
noinferences about the associatedmass transport canbe drawn.
The above mentioned issues should be borne in mind
while attempting to use the cross-correlation techniques for
measuring the mass owrate of solids in pneumatic conveyors.
It is not the intention of this paper to prove that such
measurements are not possible. It is simply to draw attention
to the fact that very often the results may be ow regime, or
indeed ow rig dependent and some serious caveats regarding
the underlying theoretical approach used by cross-correlation
techniques should be mentioned.
For the above mentioned reasons the experimental work
conducted at UMIST focused in the rst instance on the ow
in the vertical section of the ow rig. It was thought that
the ow patterns could be assumed to a good approximation
axis-symmetrical and would be free of situations in which
a stationary settled layer of solids affects the correlation
analysis. The experiments focused on relatively lowconveying
velocities (gas velocities between 1.5 and 2.0 m s
1
for an
empty pipe) and a feed of solids generally between 700 and
900 kg h
1
. This was a compromise between obtaining
1115
A J Jaworski and T Dyakowski
well-dened plug ow and ensuring that the ECT system
can still follow the passage of the ow structures with
the 100 frames s
1
capture rate. The experimental results
presented are preliminary in character and illustrate the level
of analysis conducted.
The instantaneous mass owrate throughthe cross-section
of a pipe can be written as
m(t ) =

(x, y, t )v(x, y, t ) dx dy (1)

where (x, y, t ) stands for the instantaneous density at
point (x, y) of cross section A and v(x, y, t ) denotes
an instantaneous velocity at point (x, y) in the direction
perpendicular to the cross-sectional plane. It is then possible
to dene averages of both density and velocity over the cross-
section of the pipe A as follows:

A
(t ) =

(x, y, t ) dx dy (2)
v
A
(t ) =

v(x, y, t ) dx dy. (3)

Of course, the instantaneous density and velocity can now be
expressed in the following way:
(x, y, t ) =
A
(t ) +

(x, y, t ) (4)
v(x, y, t ) = v
A
(t ) + v

(x, y, t ) (5)
where, by denition,

(x, y, t ) dx dy = 0. (6)

(x, y, t ) dx dy = 0. (7)
Consequently,
m(t ) =

[
A
(t ) +

(x, y, t )][ v
A
(t ) + v

(x, y, t )] dx dy
=

A
(t ) v
A
(t ) dx dy +

(x, y, t ) v
A
(t ) dx dy
+

A
(t )v

(x, y, t ) dx dy
+

(x, y, t )v

(x, y, t ) dx dy. (8)

Of course, the second and third terms on the right-hand side
are zero by denition. The rst term can be easily integrated
and therefore
m(t ) = A
A
(t ) v
A
(t ) +

(x, y, t )v

(x, y, t ) dx dy. (9)

The above equation highlights the reasons why tomography is
required for highly non-uniform ows to correctly calculate
the mass ow rate of solids. It clearly shows that the more
spatially non-uniform the ow (both in the velocity sense and
in the density sense) the larger the second term on the right-
hand side of equation (9). Therefore, considering the ow on
a pixel-by-pixel basis becomes essential.
On the other hand for uniform ows the second term will
disappear, leading to a simplied equation:
m(t ) = A
A
(t ) v
A
(t ). (10)
This level of simplication was applied in the study of the ow
in the vertical pipe presented here. Applying equation (10) in
discrete form for the tomographic measurements yields
m
A

k=n
k=1
(t
k
) v(t
k
)t
t
n
t
1
(11)
where discrete times t
1
, . . . , t
n
correspond to consecutive
tomographic images. To apply equation (11) some estimates of
the instantaneous density and velocity must be introduced. The
former could be found if the average permittivity distribution
in the sensor control volume could be linked to the average
density(or concentration). This is not straightforward, since no
appropriate mixing lawis known a priori, so the concentration
of solids cannot be obtained in a reliable fashion. For the
work described here, a linear relationship between density and
permittivity has been assumed. More sophisticated models can
be applied [18], but in the current work these did not seem to
provide too much improvement.
Finding the instantaneous velocity poses another type of
problem. In the vertical pipe, the ow is bi-directional and
a method to decide the instantaneous ow direction needs
to be devised. Here, it has been decided that a short-time
window cross-correlation could be a practicable candidate,
although applying this concept may raise some questions of
a fundamental nature. At this stage, the spacing between the
sensors for the correlation analysis was assumed to be 13 cm.
A sample result showing the average concentration of
solids as a function of frame number is plotted in gure 11.
The upper graph shows its variation over 40 s. It can be seen
that the occurrence of plugs is quasi-periodic. The lower graph
shows the variation with time over a shorter time of 4 s. The
two phases of the ow, i.e. upward plug ow and return of
material, can be easily recognized.
Figure 12(a) shows a typical power spectrum obtained
for the ow in the vertical section. In this example, the data
set consisted of 32768 concentrations of solids (over 5 min
of ow rig operation). There are two maxima on the graph.
The rst, in the region of 0.3 Hz, most probably corresponds
to the frequency of the large scale ow patterns (i.e. a train
of plugs every few seconds). The second maximum, in the
region between 6 and 10 Hz, corresponds most probably to the
individual plugs within the train. It can be seen, however, that
the whole spectrum is of broad-band character, indicating a
quasi-periodic rather than regular ow character. Figure 12(b)
shows the cross-correlation of the signals obtained from two
planes of the sensor. Here again the plot contains low- and
high-frequency components. The maximum of the correlation
function for this example falls around +40 ms.
However, the cross-correlation function shown in
gure 12(b) would indicate only the upward direction of
the transport of solids. In order to study this in more
1116
Gassolids ow characteristics
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upward plug flow material falling down
Figure 11. The average concentrations of solids obtained from the tomograms for a gas velocity of 2 m s
1
and a feed of solids at 900 kg h
1
.
0.1 1 10
1E-011
1E-010
1E-009
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1E-006
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0
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(a) (b)
Figure 12. The power spectrum (a) and correlation function (b) obtained for plug ow in the vertical pipe, for a gas velocity of 2 m s
1
and
a feed of solids at 900 kg h
1
.
-1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
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Figure 13. Two sample correlation results corresponding to the
upward and downward transport of solids in the vertical pipe for a
gas velocity of 2 m s
1
and a feed of solids at 900 kg h
1
.
detail, the signal was divided into shorter sequences (typically
windows of the order of 128 samples). These were
subsequently correlated between two planes. Figure 13
presents the correlation function for the data taken for the
upward movement (lled circles) and material falling down
the vertical section (empty circles). It can be seen that the
direction of the owcan nowbe determined, a positive time lag
indicating upward movement and a negative time lag indicating
the downward transport of solids.
The calculations of the mass ow rate of solids carried
out using formula (11) and estimates of density and velocity
as explained above typically underestimated the actual mass
ow rates by 2030%. For the two benchmark ow rates
of 700 and 900 kg h
1
, the typical results from calculations
would fall into the regions of 500600 and 700750 kg h
1
,
respectively. On the one hand, the results are encouraging,
because they prove that a formalized approach to calculating
the mass ow rate can give answers of the same order of
magnitude. On the other hand, it is apparent that there is
still a lot of scope for improvement in applying this approach.
In particular, the method described uses concentrations of
solids and therefore propagation velocities averaged over the
1117
A J Jaworski and T Dyakowski
cross-section of the pipe. However, in principle it is possible
that, while some solids travel upwards in one part of the pipe,
other particles travel downwards in another part. Therefore,
the cross-correlation analysis should be performed on a pixel-
by-pixel basis, rather than for the whole cross-section. This
could also include the correlation between pixels in two planes
which do not correspond to one another, to allow for lateral
movement of solids. Further work in this area is planned.
4. Conclusions
The paper presented is concerned with the application of
ECT for investigating the unsteady and three-dimensional
characteristics of gassolids ow associated with pneumatic
transport both in horizontal and in vertical pipes. It has been
demonstrated that ECTis able to image the dynamics of macro-
structures (slugs and plugs) in a manner that is consistent
with high-speed photographic techniques. Moreover, unlike
photographic methods, ECT can give valuable insight into
the internal structure of ow instabilities such as slugs and
plugs. This is important from the viewpoint of ow modelling
and validating of CFD codes, which makes ECT an excellent
research tool.
Furthermore, the application of a twin-plane tomography
system to the measurement of multiphase ow is discussed.
This is usually attempted by using well-known cross-
correlation techniques. Fundamental assumptions lying
behind these techniques are discussed in some detail and
these are related to the prospective application of ECT for
measurement of ow rates of solids in pneumatic conveying
systems. Several potential weaknesses are identied, in
particular the nite length of electrodes, ability to detect the
ow in a large control volume only and wavelike character of
dense gassolids ow.
The theoretical analysis underlying the mass ow
measurements is presented and appropriate simplications are
discussed. This is applied to a ow in the vertical channel
for measuring the ow rate of solids in the presence of plug
ow and preliminary results are presented. However, it is
generally apparent that, before the tomographic techniques
can successfully be applied to multiphase measurement, a few
further developments need to take place. These should include
the following.
(i) The capture rate of the tomographic equipment should be
increased to the region of 5001000 frames s
1
to allow
more accurate estimation of the propagation velocity of
the disturbances in the ow. In the current work, the ow
was selected such that ECT could cope with representing
the ow sequences correctly, but it was felt that time lag
estimates were not accurate enough.
(ii) The development of suitable models to relate the measured
dielectric permittivity of the gassolids mixture to the
density (or concentration). This is an issue that ECT
equipment manufacturers are well aware of, but it needs
to be addressed more strongly by the research community.
(iii) The effects of spatial ltering due to nite electrode length
on correlation analysis should be considered. At present,
a centre-to-centre distance between the sensor planes is
taken into account in calculations, but some more detailed
investigations are needed in order to justify the use of
correlation techniques for measurements.
Acknowledgments
We would like to gratefully acknowledge the support obtained
from the European Commission BRITE EURAM programme
(BRST-CT98-5402) and the UK Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (GR/M31910). We would also
like to thank Process Tomography Ltd for providing a twin-
plane ECTsystemand the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for
access to the high-speed camera used for ow visualizations.
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