In situ X-Ray Computed Tomography for study of glass melter operation
EMSL Project ID
60697
Abstract
X-ray computed tomography (CT) imaging of glass melts will support start-up of Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. A unique melter system acting as an analogy of the Hanford melter has been created and continues to be developed to simulate Hanford operation. As glass forming chemicals are dripped as a slurry on a pool of hot glass they form sintered material and foam. Characterizing the morphology of these phases is key to understanding heat and mass flow in the melters. CT imaging has allowed in situ measurement of this morphology, a capability unique at this scale. Forced convection of the glass melt is achieved with a submerged bubbler. Bubbling is one of the most significant factors in glass melt rate and foam structure. Imaging melts with variable bubbling can elucidate a physical explanation for the observed increase in melt rate caused by bubbling. The temperature gradient within the sintered and foamy phases is poorly understood and hard to measure, due to their opacity and undefined thickness. CT imaging allows thermocouples in the melter to be precisely located so that the temperatures can be assigned to points in the melt. Thermocouples have been added to the melter, which like the bubbler, are submerged in the glass melt and able to rotate with the melter vessel.
X-ray images are collected during CT scanning and processed into 3D images of the melter in a process called reconstruction. Advanced reconstruction techniques can be achieved using EMSL computing to get the highest quality images. Open-source software harnesses the GPU cores of the EMSL computing to bring cutting-edge medical reconstruction to the large images from the industrial scanner. Advanced reconstruction of such large images is new in the field and furthers the uniqueness of our capability.
This proposal continues five years of research on this system with the CT instrument.
Project Details
Start Date
2023-03-07
End Date
2023-10-01
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members