Velocity Profiling of Multiphase Flows Using Capacitive Sensor Sensitivity Gradient

Abstract

Velocity profiling of a flow involves the task of determining the velocity vector at every point in a given flow volume. A new method is proposed for velocity profiling of multiphase flows based on electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) sensors. The proposed method utilizes a mapping between the change in measured capacitances and the displacement of flow that is effected by the spatial gradient of the sensitivity distribution. Here, this novel mapping not only avoids the need for costly image cross-correlations but also is fully compatible with existing ECVT sensor and image reconstruction algorithms. Simulation and measurement results are provided to demonstrate the proposed method.