Electronic instrumentation for particle mass flow rates in pipes

The aim of the project is to measure the mass flow rate of an electrostatic spraying process, by means of a novel pulse charge technique. This involves three main topics. First the study of the physical process of charging and collection. Second the design of charge detection electronic instrument. Finally the measurement and analysis of the experimental data in order to predict the flow rate. The study of the physical process of charging and collection involved the examination of the charge injection and corona discharge, and the study of charge collection to optimize the sensor length and the charge injection pulse width. The charge detection electronic instrument measures the charge induced at the sensors. Due to the low magnitude of the charge detected, circuit analysis was necessary to minimize the electrical noise in the devices. The experimental work consists of interfacing the electronic instrument designed, to the microcomputer system for data analysis. Data was collected over a wide range of parameter variation, and it was possible with the microcomputer system to perform statistical analysis on this data. The result showed that there was a wide range of fluctuation in the original data but with analysis it was possible to obtain an accurate prediction of the flow rate from the sensor