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Development of a molten fluid, non-contact flow rate sensor
Raadam, Bo
Raadam, Bo
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2024
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Abstract
Reliable measurement equipment for pyrometallurgical flows has proven elusive to develop but presents a substantial opportunity for industrial facilities to improve their safety and economic performance. After reviewing techniques that could potentially prove suitable for these applications, it was elected to design a sensor around the time-of-flight Lorentz force principle.
Sensor design began with computational modeling using Ansys Fluent and Ansys Maxwell before testing on a continuous lab-scale flow loop. A gallium-indium-tin alloy was used for experimental work due to its material compatibility with PVC, melting temperature below room temperature, and similar properties to those of high temperature liquid metals. Sulfuric acid with a pH below one was used to treat any oxide product formed on the metal surface which would have changed the alloy’s non-wetting behavior. Initially, it was attempted to use a commercial flowmeter designed around the electric potential technique for confirmation of the prototype sensor performance though issues on the gallium alloy meant that the pump curve and hand timing measurements were used instead.
Sensor performance was tested at the lab-scale and found to be unsatisfactory for scale up to industrial application even with the modifications performed. Testing of the code written for converting raw data into velocity measurements using an artificial data generating code revealed a required measurement to noise ratio of around 3.5, a condition that was not met during prototype testing.
To further troubleshoot the sensor performance, additional modeling was conducted, again using Ansys Fluent, Maxwell, and now SolidWorks to understand the sensor performance issues. The main sensor factor for the data not being large enough to register above the background noise was the weak magnetic field produced by the electromagnets.
Preliminary economic, environmental, and safety assessments suggest potential improvement in operations that justify further research into and development of a sensor.
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