Design And Research Of Coplanar Multi-electrode Inducing Ice Thickness Sensor And Its Detection System

This topic is an application of basic research which is conducted in the support of Ph.D. Doctoral Program of higher specialized research fund (20091402110004) and outstanding graduate Innovation Project in Shanxi Province (80010402100171).Continuous ice thickness detection is one of the urgent need technology in the polar expedition, ice flood control mitigation, hydrology, safe operation of hydropower projects, environmental protection, meteorology and other fields.Based on the summary of advantages and disadvantages of various ice thicknesses the detection methods, this paper proposed a new method to achieve automatic continuous ice thickness detection which use of a uniplanar multi-electrode sensor.The detection principle is:when the sensor is placed vertically in the river channel,one of the electrode is put an excitation(the other electrodes turn on to grounded), the scattered electric field will be formed.when materials with different dielectric constants (air, ice, water) close to the scattering field,on the top of electrode will show a different field strength values. By analyzing the differences in electric field strength, the physical form of the tested substances (water, ice, or air) will be recognized by very electrode, so ice thickness and water under ice can be automatically detected.Center on this new method of ice thickness detection, the paper carried out research in the following areas:1. Compared with the advantages and disadvantages of ice thickness detection methods by large amounts of data, a new method to achieve automatic continuous ice thickness detection which use of a uniplanar multi-electrode sensor was proposed.2. Theoretical analysis and simulation experiments are used to demonstrated the basic theory of the new method which lay a theoretical foundation for the uniplanar multi-electrode inducing ice thickness sensor3. Based on the theoretical analysis and experiment, a dedicated uniplanar multi-electrode inducing ice thickness unit was designed, and a number of mechanism experiments were carried out in the laboratory. The experiments validated the feasibility of the new method.4. According to engineering application characteristics, uniplanar multi-electrode inducing ice thickness sensor and its detection system are designed, Including the system hardware circuit,software and structure.5. Use the new designed uniplanar multi-electrode inducing ice thickness sensor and its detection system in the Yellow River Toudaoguai river in 2009.12-2010.3.Testing process showed that the newly designed uniplanar multi-electrode inducing ice thickness sensor and its detection system is reliable and achieved the intended design function. Through further analysis of the experiment data, the new ice thickness detection method is proved feasible.Through the efforts of more than a year, with guiding of teacher and help of students, the research task is completed on scheduled. I am pleased that the new method have been accepted by China Polar sea-ice Research Center and programmed as one of the 28th Chinese Antarctic expedition of sea-ice observations projects.I believe that through the continuous improvement in practical application, the new ice thickness detection method and equipment will be further improved and enhanced.