High-speed EIT z8000 System

Multi-phase Flow Measurement

The z8000 has been demonstrated with researchers in the UK at the BHRG, the Universities of Leeds and Huddersfield and elsewhere at Delft (Netherlands) and the Chinese academy of Sciences.  These groups  have used the system to measure oil in water flows, gas-liquid mixing and solid-water flows.

An example of oil-water flows is shown above, where the tomography data was reconstructed using linear back projection and then processed using a cross correlation utility. The diagram shows the oil velocity in a vertical pipe section. The oil concentration and velocity distributions were validated using an intrusive conductivity probe.

Tomography and CFD Validation

Both the p2000 and new z8000  were applied in a recent project M3P (Mixing and Modelling of Multi-phase Processes) with partners BP Chemicals, BHR Group and the University of Leeds. ITS will be  presenting the  work at the forthcoming 3rd International Workshop on Process Tomography (IWPT-3) to be held in April 2009 in Tokyo, Japan.

The p2000 assessed the average gas hold-up, imaging up to eight planes at approx 30ms per plane. The z8000 was used to measure the dynamic gas hold-up of the highly gassed, intensely mixed stirred tank reactor, taking more than 1,000 measurements per seconds. Both sets of tomography systems and the  CFD results (an example of which is shown above) were tested against other physical measurements.

CFD predictions of the axial variation in gas hold-up also gave good correspondence to the 8 plane tomography data shown above with an enhanced scale for comparison with CFD.  Both methods have provided good indications for further work in each discipline and have been helpful for providing insight into full scale industrial operations.

A paper has been prepared which will be available after the workshop.

Continuous Reactor

Researchers at the University of Leeds have used a high speed tomography system to measure the performance of an Oscillatory Baffled Reactor (OBR). The OBR is an innovative approach to mixing in continuous reactors. The high speed of the z8000 allows dynamic changes to be measured over a very small time scale. The image below shows the material distribution of oil in water and helps aid understanding of this process.