Determination of Concentration Profile for Flowing Solid Particles in Pipeline Using Electric Charge Tomography System

Tomography aims to present an image of a cross-sectional distribution of materials in some regions of interest such as cross-section of a pipeline or process vessel. This paper presents the concentration profiles of solid particles across a conveying pipeline obtained using tomographic imaging. In the paper, 16 electrodynamic sensors were installed around the circumference of a pipeline to capture electric charges carried by the particles moving through the pipeline under gravity. The Cartesian coordinate system used to derive the system equation gave an accurate charge distribution while the meshing technique of the finite element method applied miniaturized the pixel sizes within the sensing zone. The problem of unstable matrix and weak signal response around the center of the pipe cross-section, normally associated with the electric charge tomography system, was addressed using matrix compression through transposition and filtering. The pro rata distribution method mostly applied in the financial accounting analysis was used in the final stage. An algorithm for realization of the concepts was developed using MATLAB. The qualities of the resulting images for four different flow regimes provide good quality images representing the distribution of the particles across the pipeline cross-section.