Development of videogrammetry as a tool for gas-particle fluidization research

Many industries use fluidization of solid particles for energy efficiency or environmental friendly process development, and this paper introduces research techniques developed for investigating gas-particle systems At present there is plenty of room for refining gas-particle fluidization process. With the rapidly rising application of mathematical modelling, real time visualization of processes will be widely used for validation of those models in the near future. In presented research, photogrammetry, as a part of close range vision metrology, has been expanded to allow dynamic space and time analysis of the phase concentration distribution inside fluidization devices. A novel videogrammetry method was created with additional stochastic process analysis for detailed frequency and amplitude characteristics. Videogrammetry was used for the assessment of flow regimes, which were held in various types of fluidization apparatuses. Classic bubbling, jet-spouted and fast circulating fluidization processes were explored under the investigation. Videogrammetry is non-invasive flow regime recognition method, which enables detailed research of gas-particle fluidization phenomena. Until now, there were no comparative studies for three different types of fluidization processes with the use of one complex approach. Developed videogrammetric method consists of the flow structure visualization and dynamic image analysis. The analysed feature is the grey level of the image in time domain, and grey level signals were analysed with the use of autocorrelation function and power density function. The results are presented as images, plots and a flow map. Efficiency of the method was tested by comparison of real observed flow structures to the reconstructed flow structures and the recognition accuracy reached 92%.