Using Electrical Capacitance Tomography System for Determination of Liquids in Rocket and Satellite Tanks

One of important problems in aerospace engineering is to determine the amount of fluid in the tank in a microgravity environment. There are several methods for doing it, however, there are no proven methods to quickly gauge the amount of propellant in a tank in low gravity conditions. New and more accurate methods of such a measurement are being continually searched for. One of interesting solutions is using Electrical Capacitance Tomography (ECT) for this purpose. The article presents both numerical analysis and experimental test results using a spherical tank. The main purpose of the simulation was to determine the effect of the number of electrodes and noise signal level on the quality of reconstruction images. In numerical simulations, different models of dielectric permittivity distribution have been reconstructed. On the basis of numerical simulations, a 24-electrode sensor was designed and made. In experimental tests, different distribution of medium inside the spherical tank was investigated. The results show that the method can directly measure the mass of fuel in the tank, as well as it allows for a visualization of fuel distribution, independent of the tank position in space, and the liquid-propellant system will be used.