SBIR Phase I: Industrial Process Tomography for Turbulent Pipe Flows

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 project proposes to evaluate the feasibility of obtaining statistics (mean, RMS and spatial correlation) of mixing of particulates in turbulent pipe flows. The two key issues that will be addressed during the proposed work are: (1) the feasibility of obtaining local statistics of particles in a turbulent smoke jet using the deconvolution algorithm, and (2) the feasibility of obtaining laser extinction measurement in smoke laden turbulent flow confined within a pipe. Two tasks are planned to address the feasibility of obtaining statistics of particulates in a turbulent pipe flow. The first is to evaluate the deconvolution algorithm in a turbulent smoke jet. The second is to utilize the algorithm in a smoke laden turbulent pipe flow with a variable size opening on the pipe. The statistics of particulates confined in the pipe will be determined asymptotically by varying the opening size. There are two major commercial applications for the on-line monitoring of particulates in confined turbulent flows. The first involves online monitoring of particulate emission from engines and smoke stacks. Power plants, waste-to-energy plants and chemical industries that apply high cost particulate controls would be interested in identifying the efficiency of their control devices at various process conditions. The second application involves assuring quality control in process industries. Solids and powder processing, power, chemical and pharmaceutical industries would benefit the most from the quality improvements that are enabled with on-line particulate monitoring in pipes. The additional commercial application of the particulate monitor will be to help two-phase flow scientists in universities and research laboratories to obtain data for model validation