Hybrid Dynamic Radioactive Particle Tracking (RPT) Calibration Technique for Multiphase Flow Systems

Abstract

The radioactive particle tracking (RPT) technique has been utilized to measure three-dimensional hydrodynamic parameters for multiphase flow systems. An analytical solution to the inverse problem of the RPT technique, i.e. finding the instantaneous tracer positions based upon instantaneous counts received in the detectors, is not possible. Therefore, a calibration to obtain a counts-distance map is needed. There are major shortcomings in the conventional RPT calibration method due to which it has limited applicability in practical applications. In this work, the design and development of a novel dynamic RPT calibration technique are carried out to overcome the shortcomings of the conventional RPT calibration method. The dynamic RPT calibration technique has been implemented around a test reactor with 1foot in diameter and 1 foot in height using Cobalt-60 as an isotopes tracer particle. Two sets of experiments have been carried out to test the capability of novel dynamic RPT calibration. In the first set of experiments, a manual calibration apparatus has been used to hold a tracer particle at known static locations. In the second set of experiments, the tracer particle was moved vertically downwards along a straight line path in a controlled manner. The obtained reconstruction results about the tracer particle position were compared with the actual known position and the reconstruction errors were estimated. The obtained results revealed that the dynamic RPT calibration technique is capable of identifying tracer particle positions with a reconstruction error between 1 to 5.9 mm for the conditions studied which could be improved depending on various factors outlined here.

Department(s)

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Research Center/Lab(s)

Center for High Performance Computing Research

Keywords and Phrases

Fluidized Beds; Inverse Problems; Multiphase Flow; Radioactive Tracers; Radioactivity; Calibration Method; Calibration Techniques; Design and Development; Hydrodynamic Parameters; Multi-Phase Flow Systems; Radioactive Particle Tracking; Reconstruction Error; Straight-Line Paths; Calibration; Dynamic RPT Calibration; Radioactive Particle Tracking (RPT) Technique

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0957-0233; 1361-6501

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2017 Institute of Physics - IOP Publishing, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 May 2017

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