TY - JOUR
T1 - Electrical resistance tomography for control applications
T2 - Quantitative study of the gas-liquid distribution inside a cyclone
AU - Sattar, Muhammad Awais
AU - Garcia, Matheus Martinez
AU - Banasiak, Robert
AU - Portela, Luis M.
AU - Babout, Laurent
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Phase separation based centrifugal forces is effective, and thus widely explored by the process industry. In an inline swirl separator, a core of the light phase is formed in the center of the device and captured further downstream. Given the inlet conditions, this gas core created varies in shape and size. To predict the separation behavior and control the process in an optimal way, the gas core diameter should be measured with the minimum possible intrusiveness. Process tomography techniques such as electrical resistance tomography (ERT) allows us to measure the gas core diameter in a fast and non-intrusive way. Due to the soft-field nature and ill-posed problem in solving the inverse problem, especially in the area of low spatial resolution, the reconstructed images often overestimate the diameter of the object under consideration leading to unreliable measurements. To use ERT measurements as an input for the controller, the estimated diameters should be corrected based on secondary measurements, e.g., optical techniques such as high-speed cameras. In this context, image processing and image analysis techniques were adapted to compare the diameter calculated by an ERT system and a fast camera. In this paper, a correction method is introduced to correct the diameter obtained by ERT based on static measurements. The proposed method reduced the ERT error of dynamic measurements of the gas core size from over 300% to below 20%, making it a reliable sensing technique for controlled separation processes.
AB - Phase separation based centrifugal forces is effective, and thus widely explored by the process industry. In an inline swirl separator, a core of the light phase is formed in the center of the device and captured further downstream. Given the inlet conditions, this gas core created varies in shape and size. To predict the separation behavior and control the process in an optimal way, the gas core diameter should be measured with the minimum possible intrusiveness. Process tomography techniques such as electrical resistance tomography (ERT) allows us to measure the gas core diameter in a fast and non-intrusive way. Due to the soft-field nature and ill-posed problem in solving the inverse problem, especially in the area of low spatial resolution, the reconstructed images often overestimate the diameter of the object under consideration leading to unreliable measurements. To use ERT measurements as an input for the controller, the estimated diameters should be corrected based on secondary measurements, e.g., optical techniques such as high-speed cameras. In this context, image processing and image analysis techniques were adapted to compare the diameter calculated by an ERT system and a fast camera. In this paper, a correction method is introduced to correct the diameter obtained by ERT based on static measurements. The proposed method reduced the ERT error of dynamic measurements of the gas core size from over 300% to below 20%, making it a reliable sensing technique for controlled separation processes.
KW - Digital image processing
KW - Electrical resistance tomography (ERT)
KW - High-speed camera
KW - Swirling two-phase flow
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094135959&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/s20216069
DO - 10.3390/s20216069
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85094135959
VL - 20
SP - 1
EP - 24
JO - Sensors
JF - Sensors
SN - 1424-8220
IS - 21
M1 - 6069
ER -