Fire-flame imaging using electrical capacitance tomography

Abstract

The specific characteristic of tomographic measurement is its proven ability to interrogate the dynamic state of a process condition within a unit operation such as a mixing vessel or conveyor without interfering with the process itself. This is achieved using noninvasive sensors along a cross-sectional boundary of the process equipment. Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) is a non-intrusive technique for obtaining information about the distribution of the contents of closed pipes by measuring variations in the dielectric permittivity of the material within the electrodes sensing region. An 8 electrode ECT sensor system with a graphical user interfacing (GUI) software programming has been developed by using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0. This system can be used to investigate the distribution of fire flame inside the vessel. Data from the hardware system can be acquired directly to computer through a microcontroller control unit to provide the cross sectional image of the fire flame. Image reconstruction algorithm used in this project is the conventional, but effective Linear Back Projection (LBP).