ABSTRACT:

Electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) is an imaging technique for industrial applications. ECT is based on measuring capacitance from a multi-electrode capacitance sensor and reconstructing cross-sectional images, aiming to visualise the distribution of dielectric materials, such as gas/solids distribution in a fluidised bed. The internal information is valuable for understanding complicated phenomena, verifying computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models, measurement and control of industrial processes, which are difficult to measure and control by conventional process instruments. Compared with other tomography modalities, ECT is the most mature and offers advantages of no radiation, rapid response, non-intrusive and non-invasive, withstanding high temperature and high pressure and low-cost.
Research into ECT involves sensor and electronic circuit design, data acquisition, computer interface, mathematics, finite element analysis, software programming, and general knowledge in chemical engineering. Because of extremely small capacitance to be measured (down to 110-4 pF) and the nature of soft-field, ECT presents some challenges in engineering, mathematics and computer programming. The University of Manchester (formerly UMIST) pioneered research into ECT. The latest ACECT system presents the state-of-the-art technology, which can generate on-line images at 100 frames per second with 73 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and has been used for many challenging industrial applications, such as multiphase flows in oil pipelines, wet gas separators, pneumatic conveyors, cyclone separators and fluidised bed dryers. It is foreseen that ECT will make major contributions to the oil and gas, pharmaceutical and power industries. During the lecture, the principle of ECT, two capacitance measuring circuits, image reconstruction algorithms and some applications will be discussed, together with live demonstration of an ACECT system.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Professor Wuqiang Yang entered the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University in 1977. He received BEng (with Distinction) degree in instrumentation and process control in 1982, MSc and PhD (with Distinction) degrees in navigation and control in 1985 and 1988. He was then a Lecturer at Tsinghua University. Since 1991, he has been working with UMIST (now the University of Manchester), as a Research Associate, Research Fellow, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and then Professor. In 2006, he took sabbatical leave at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in USA as a visiting professor. He has published over 200 scientific papers, including review articles. His main research interests include industrial process tomography, especially ECT, image reconstruction, sensing and data acquisition systems, electronic circuit design, instrumentation and multiphase flow measurement.
Professor Yang became a Member of IEE in 1997, Fellow of IEE in 2004 and Senior Member of IEEE in 2005 (Fellow of IEEE in process). He is a chartered engineer, referee for over 30 professional journals, subject advisor to British Council Advisers College, science advisor to Chinese Academy of Sciences, visiting professor at Tsinghua, Tianjin, ShangQiu Normal, and North University of China, editorial board member of Sensor Review journal, Chinese Journal of Scientific Instrument, Sensors and Transducers Journal and Journal of Measurement Science and Instrumentation, guest editor of Measurement Science and Technology and IET Image Processing journals, qualified expert in Intota (USA), and panel member of Natural Science Foundation of China. He received 1997 IEE Measurement Prize, 1997 Honeywell Prize from the Institute of Measurement and Control, 2000 IEE Ayrton Premium and 2009 IET Innovation Award Finalist. His biography has been included in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and Who’s Who in America since 2002. He is recognised by International Center for Scientific Research (France) as one of top 30 technology researchers in the world. In 2010, he was given an IEEE I&M Society Distinguished Lecturer title.