Application of Optical Tomography for Measurement of Small Gas Flows

Mariusz R Rząsa1 and Andrzej Pląskowski2

1 Department of Thermal Engineering and Industrial Apparatus, Technical University of Opole, ul. Mikołajczyka 5, 45-233 Opole, Poland, mrz@po.opole.pl

2Polish Association for Process Tomography, Warszawa, Poland, tomograf@astercity.net

ABSTRACT

The paper presents a description of a flow meter for measurements of very small gas flows (e.g. 10 to 100 ml/min). Low elementary volumes of gas are counted. The elementary volumes are generated as gas bubbles located in a liquid. In the applied method of measurement of the bubble volume, a vertical column is subjected to a homogeneous light beam, next a luminous flux is detected by a set of optical wave-guide detectors. Detection enables to find a bubble and determine its dimensions.

Keywords Gas flow, optical method