Industrial process imaging

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Industrial process imaging, or industrial process tomography or process tomography are methods used to form an image of a cross-section of vessel or pipe in a chemical engineering or mineral processing, or petroleum extraction or refining plant.[1]

ultra-sound tomography, new and emerging methods such as electrical capacitance tomography and magnetic induction tomography and electrical resistivity tomography (similar to medical electrical impedance tomography
) are also used.

Although such techniques are not in widespread deployment in industrial plant there is an active research community, including a Virtual Center for industrial Process Tomography,[3] and a regular World Congress on Industrial Process Tomography, now organized by a learned society for this area, the International Society for Industrial Process Tomography[4]

A number of applications of tomography of process equipment were described in the 1970s, using Ionising Radiation from X-ray or isotope sources but routine use was limited by the high cost involved and safety constraints. Radiation-based methods used long exposure times which meant that dynamic measurements of the real-time behaviour of process systems were not feasible. The use of electrical methods to image industrial processes was pioneered by Maurice Beck at the UMIST in the mid-1980s [5]

See also

References

  1. ^ McCann, H and Scott, D.M (eds) Process Imaging for Automatic Control, Taylor and Francis, 2005,
  2. ^ MS Beck and R Williams, Process Tomography: Principles, Techniques and Applications, Butterworth-Heinemann (July 19, 1995),
  3. ^ Virtual centre for Industrial Process Tomography, www.vciptorg.uk, Accessed 06/10/2006
  4. ^ "International Society for Industrial process Tomography". Retrieved 2008-08-08.
  5. ^ Roger Waterfall, Maurice Sidney Beck M Inst P (1929-1999), November 1999, "Industrial Process Tomography at the University of Manchester". Archived from the original on 2007-10-31. Retrieved 2007-10-06..