Optimization Of Electrode Array In ERT System And Investigation On The Single Electrode Exciting Method

Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) belongs to the Process Tomography technique basing on the principle of electricity sensitization, is a high and new detecting technology that can monitor the online parameters of two-phase flow. It is fit for the industrial process where the conductible medium serves as the disperse phase in multi-phase medium, and provides two/three-dimensional visible information of multi component parameters in close pipes or process vessels.In this paper, the electrode structure and single electrode current exciting mode are deeply analyzed and optimized by the fundamental study of ERT technology. The main achievements are as follows:1. Based on the analysis of the electrode structure in ERT system, a new scheme for electrode sensor is proposed, including electrode installation method, the array of multi-plane electrodes, etc. The scheme of electrode height is analyzed and the relationship of sensing field divergence with electrode height under the condition of homogeneous medium is proposed. This investigation makes the design of electrode height more reasonable.2. Various exciting modes of ERT system are introduced and compared in characteristics, and the performance of each mode is mostly judged by the sensitivity as well as the divergence of sensing field. The selection of exciting mode would be more appropriate owing to the analysis and comparison.3. A new scheme of dual-plane ERT system with guard electrode is presented, and the function of guard electrode is validated in ANSYS, for which the guard electrode is testified to be capable in improving the parallelism as well as in compressing the space distribution of sensing field.4. Optimization single electrode current exciting mode of ERT system is brought forward, including the simulation of the influence of external resistance on sensing field, the analysis of soft field feature and the optimization of hardware circuit design. At last the single electrode current exciting mode is validated in experiment. The exciting mode is more understanding and the performance of the...