Electrostatic Sensor for Determining the Characteristics of Particles Moving From Deposition to Suspension in Pneumatic Conveying

The minimum conveying velocity or the lowest point of pressure drop curve can reflect the characteristics of particles moving from deposition to suspension in pneumatic conveying. However, when the mass flow rate is low, the change of particles flow cannot be effectively reflected by the above methods. In this paper, based on a 4-arc electrode electrostatic sensor, with localised sensitivity, the detailed scale signals that represent the particle random motion are extracted by the combination of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and Hurst exponent. The differences in the particle random motion energy ratio (PRMER) of 4-channel electrode signals are used to characterize the transition of flow state. In the verification experiment by using a belt-style electrostatic velocity measured rig, the higher the velocity of rubber belt or the closer to the electrode, the higher the PRMERs of electrostatic signal. In the experiment of gas-solid two-phase flow rig, the PRMERs of 4-channel electrode signals are all increasing with the increase of superficial gas velocity, and the PRMERs of different electrodes are rather different at low superficial gas velocity (V
_g
). When V
_g
drops at the minimum pressure drop point (P
_MPD
), the PRMERs of top/bottom and left/right electrodes begin to separate (e.g. the particle mass flow rates are 100 kg/h and 120 kg/h). Furthermore, when the solid mass flow rate is 80 kg/h, the proposed method can clearly characterize the transition of flow states in the pipeline, but the pressure drop phase diagram cannot.