A Method of Flow Characterisation Based on Continuity Theory

M. Wang and V. Shirhatti

Institute of Particle Science and Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK E-mail: m.wang@leeds.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

Flow characteristics like disperse phase concentration, gradient and velocity distribution, are important in flow engineering research, including mixing processes and sedimentation processes. As a conventional technique, the cross correlation methods (Dai, 2005) are widely used to extract velocity profile from a series of tomographic concentration data. The new method proposed in this paper for flow characterisation is based on disperse phase mass conservation and flow continuity theories with some constitutive assumptions. Process Tomography can provide sophisticated disperse phase concentration distribution over the sensing area in time and space. With the high temporal resolution provided by a fast impedance tomography system (Wang, 2005) and the distributions of concentration gradient, disperse velocity can be derived using the proposed method. The principle of the method expressed in this paper, has been demonstrated with experimental results from a powder-liquid mixing process. The derivation of the method is detailed in the paper. Results from tomograms for a real process are reported elsewhere in these proceedings.

Keywords electrical impedance tomography, flow continuity theory, velocity profile, ERT, dispersion