Voidage measurement based on genetic algorithm and electrical capacitance tomography

A new voidage measurement method based on electrical capacitance tomography （ECT） technique, Genetic Algorithm （GA） and Partial Least Square （PLS） method was proposed. The voidage measurement model, linear capacitance combination, was developed to measure on-line voidage. GA and PLS method were used to determine the coefficients of the voidage measurement model. GA was used to explore the optimal capacitance combination which gave significant contribution to the voidage measurement. PLS method was applied to determine the weight coefficient of the contribution of each capacitance to the voidage measurement. Flow pattern identification result was introduced to improve the voidage measurement accuracy. Experimental results showed that the proposed voidage measurement method is effective and that the measurement accuracy is satisfactory.