Radioactive Particle Tracking RPT

Radioactive particle tracking (RPT) can be used to map the velocity field by tracking the position of a single radioactive tracer particle in a reactor. The particle which may consist of a polypropylene shell contains a radionuclide that emits y-rays. 

This technique is invasive however, the particle can be designed to be neutrally buoyant so that it well represents the flow of the phase of interest. An array of detectors is positioned around the reactor vessel. Calibration must be performed by positioning the particle in the vessel at a number of known locations and recording each of the detector counts. During actual measurements, the y-ray emissions from the particle are monitored over many hours as it moves freely in the system maintained at steady state. Least-squares regression methods can be applied to evaluate the temporal position of the particle and thus velocity field [13, 14]. This technique offers modest spatial resolutions of 2-5 mm and sampling frequencies up to 25 Hz. 

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Recently, a novel hybrid radioactive particle tracking (RPT) facility has been developed where the calibration step for the radioactive particle was eliminated (Khane and Al-Dahhan, 2013). The new technique is claimed to minimize the dynamic bias associated with the original CARPT... 

In the study of hydrodynamics of multiphase reactors, the velocity profiles of solids may be determined experimentally by Radioactive Particle Tracking (RPT) veJocimetry technique [I]. In this technique, a radioactive tracer is being followed for several time intervals, and coordinates of this tracer are evaluated at each time interval. Instantaneous velocity of the tracer can be calculated then from... 

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