Preliminary study on three-dimensional imaging of cryogenic two-phase flow based on electrical capacitance volume tomography

•Potential application of ECVT to LN2-VN2 flow is evaluated by numerical experiment.•ECVT structures are optimized by comparing eight sensor structures.•The anti-noise ability is evaluated by different cases.•Calculations proove the feasibility of ECVT applied to LN2-VN2 flow. The potential application of electrical capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) to the liquid nitrogen-vaporous nitrogen two-phase flow measurement is evaluated by numerical experiment. The Landweber iteration is taken as the inversion algorithm which derives the reconstructed images. Eight types of ECVT sensor structures are tested and the accuracy of the reconstructed images is compared to evaluate the quality of the sensor structures. Especially, the effect of the axial guard electrodes is analyzed and discussed. The anti-noise ability of the optimal structure is also determined by calculating seven different phase distribution cases. The results demonstrate that the shifted plane and the axial guard electrode in ECVT sensor are helpful for image reconstruction quality. The layer number of ECVT sensor influences the reconstructed images a lot while the shape of the electrode has little effect on it. ECVT also shows a certain anti-noise ability under the noise level of 60 dB and 55 dB.