Stochastic analysis in gas–solid two-phase flow in the dense-phase pneumatic conveying of pulverized coal

The complex dense-phase pneumatic conveying of pulverized coal process was studied using an electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) signal that represented the motion characteristics of gas–solid two-phase flow. The fluctuation characteristics of conveying process signals are inseparable from the flow pattern. The denoised ECT signal and noise signal were obtained by db2 wavelet analysis. It was found that all noise signals were white Gaussian noise. Based on the assumption of the equal probability distribution of pulverized coal concentration, this paper proved that the time series distribution of pulverized coal concentration in the pipeline should obey the normal distribution. Furthermore, through the analysis of the distribution characteristics of the power spectral density function of denoised ECT signals of four flow patterns, they were α-dimensional fractal Brownian motion (fBm) signals, and the parameter α was estimated by the detrended fluctuation analysis. Based on the fBm characteristics of denoised ECT signals and white Gaussian noise, this paper proposed a method for calculating the pulverized coal concentration in the dense-phase pneumatic conveying. In addition to the method of concentration estimation with the significance of engineering guidance, this research can help people to further understand essential characteristics of ECT signals in the dense-phase pneumatic conveying.