International Society for Industrial Process Tomography

Robust sensor design for industrial electrical capacitance tomography

D. Wanta^1*, W. T. Smolik¹, M. Midura¹, P. Wróblewski¹

¹ Division of Nuclear and Medical Electronics,  Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland

^*Email: damian.wanta@pw.edu.pl

ABSTRACT

Electrical capacitance tomography is a high temporal resolution imaging technique, making it well suited for monitoring fast-changing industrial processes. The coupling capacitance should be large compared to the measured capacitance to obtain a high SNR level in the measurement of conductive materials. Increasing the coupling capacitance is associated with reducing the insulation thickness covering the electrode. At the same time, the insulation cannot be too thin for industrial applications because it should have high mechanical resistance. This paper proposes a new tomographic sensor design, which allows for obtaining a large coupling capacitance while maintaining the high mechanical resistance of the electrodes. The actual measurements were performed using the EVT4 data acquisition system. The reconstructed image with the basic test object is shown.

Keywords: capacitance measurement, electrical capacitance tomography, industrial tomography, multiphase flow, signal-to-noise ratio

Industrial Application: General.