Particle & Particle Systems Characterization, Vol.25, No.3, 244-258, 2008
Locally resolving measurements of PSD, particle concentration and particle velocity by means of TFS with dual beams
Transmission fluctuation spectrometry with spatial correlation (TFS-SC) is based on transmitting two beams of radiation through a flowing suspension, whereby the distance of the beam centers is varied. Thus, the spatial correlation of the transmission fluctuations of the two beams is determined as a function of the beam distance. By numerical modeling, the transition functions of the correlation are found as a function of beam distance, beam diameters, particle diameter and beam intersection angle. Experimentally determined spatial correlation spectra can be inverted to obtain the particle concentration and particle size distribution by using the theoretical transition functions for mono-sized particles. In addition, time correlations can be used to extract information on particle velocity. Some experimental results obtained by TFS-SC are presented and discussed. This method appears promising for application in the local resolving of measurements of PSD, particle concentration and particle velocity in two-phase flows, both in the laboratory and in process control.
Keywords:correlation;flow velocity measurement;particle size analysis;transmission fluctuation spectrometry;two-phase flows