A new method to calculate sedimentation velocity of particle group with three-plane ECT based on the best correlation function

Abstract

ABSTRACT A novel method to calculate the flow velocity of solid in a solid–liquid two-phase system is induced in this paper by electrical capacitance tomography (ECT). Taking the slime settlement as an example, the concentration change of three planes in the settling tank is measured using ECT. Moreover, the settling velocity of continuous frames in different sensor planes employing the best correlation function is calculated. The results show that slime has a higher and more uniform settlement velocity in the center area of the settlement tank. A 0.02–0.04 cm/s deviation is found between the calculated velocity of clarifying interfacial layer when slime passing through the ECT sensor and the experimental data. Remarkably, the time point is in good agreement with the experimental result which is between 7 and 13 s, indicating that the method can be used to estimate the settling velocity of solid in a two-phase flow.