An investigation on grain moisture content measurement using electrical capacitance tomography
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Date
2015
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
Grain Moisture Content (MC) facilitates development of fungi and moulds which destroy the quality of grain. Hence, efficient grain MC monitoring is important. The distribution of moisture in grain storage facilities is not uniform hence the current MC measurement methods which estimate only the magnitude of moisture by applying sampling technique are inefficient. Other techniques which can offer both magnitude and spatial distribution in continuous manner can be used to improve efficiency of grain MC monitoring. Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) has been used in many applications to show the distribution of mixtures by employing capacitance measurement techniques; the same technique has been used successfully for determination of MC in grains. Therefore; in this work ECT features have been investigated and adopted for the grain MC measurement for the purpose of obtaining both the magnitude and spatial distribution of MC in grain storage facilities. ECT sensor has been used to simulate the grain storage facility while maize was the type of grain which was used in this investigation. The capacitance measurement circuit (CMC) has been designed and equations which show the relationship between MC and CMC output voltages for various pairs of ECT sensor electrodes have successfully been generated. Also MC distribution along the sensor cross section for grains placed in ECT sensor were obtained and presented using two dimensional images. This work has successfully proved the possibilities of obtaining both the estimated magnitude and spatial information on the distribution of MC in grain storage facilities using ECT techniques.
Description
Available in print form, East Africana Collection, Dr. Wilbert Chagula Library, Class Mark ( THS EAF SB189.K38)
Keywords
Grain, Measurement, Electrical capacitance tomography
Citation
Kawambwa, S. J (2015) An investigation on grain moisture content measurement using electrical capacitance tomography, Master dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam