Two-phase Flow Visualization Employing Gauss-Newton Method in Microchannel

Abstract

F low behaviour m onitoring on the micro-scale is very important in many industrial and biochemical process. Electrical resistance tomography (ERT) , as an alternative technique to visualize multi-phase flows, has high temporal resolution for monitoring fast transient processes. However, the complexity of microchannel fabrication end up with the difficulty of electrical data sampling and the non-linearity and ill-posedness of the inverse problem often cause the poor spatial resolution of the reconstructed images. In t his paper , Agilent based data acquisition hardware was set up for reliable data retrieval from a novel microchannel. Gauss- Newton method with adaptive threshold (GNAT) technique was presented to improve the spatial resolution of ERT images. Preliminary e xperimental results reveal that ERT system based on Agilent data acquisition unit and GNAT method can effectively visualize the solid-liquid two-phase flow in microchannel.