Pneumatic Flow Characterization Using ECT Tomography Images Analysis

The control of dens-phase pneumatic convening process is not trivial task. The control of flow phenomena requires a details knowledge about the temporal and spatial changes of material concentration during flow. The paper described application of electrical capacitance tomography for the characterization of the pneumatic conveying of solids. The level of concentration changes obtained with aid of tomography images and calculated flow velocity allow to monitoring flow behaviour during the granular material transport process. The applied cross-correlation technique for image processing, the calculated pixels-based flow velocity profile together with the proposed visualisation method of sequence of tomography images, provide information about flow conditions. The measurements were conducted for different flow conditions, including also flow with pipeline blockage. The preliminary results of the proposed flow characterization method, provide promising results.