Applicability of ERT to the rectangular section glass melter

N. Ichijoa, S. Matsunoa, T. Sakaia, Y. Tochigia, M. Kaminoyamab, K. Nishib,

R. Misumib and S. Nishiyamab

aIHI Corporation 1 Shin-nakahara-cho, Isogo-ku, Yokohama 235-8501, Japan

bDivision of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yokohama National University 79-5 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan

Abstract

To clarify the noble metals behaviour in molten glass and ensure a stable operation of the Joule-heated glass melter, applicability study of Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) to the glass melter is implemented. The glass melter has a rectangular section. Moreover, electrodes cannot be installed on the wall because of the designing limitation. This paper presents the development of electrodes arrangement, the reconstruction algorithm and the influence of the conductivity ratio to obtain better images. As a result, numerical simulations reveal that better results are obtained when electrodes arrangement is circular. Clear images are reconstructed by using the back- projection-based-iteration method. Experiments reveal that acceptable images are obtained when the conductivity ratio is the same as the actual glass melter. It is clarified that ERT enables us to obtain acceptable reconstructed images and has a potential to visualize the accumulation of noble metals.

Keywords: Electrical Resistance Tomography; Image Reconstruction; Glass Melter; CFD; Noble Metal;