Application of 3D electrical capacitance tomography in probing anomalous blocks in water

Abstract Water usually acts as a high-permittivity dielectric in many fields such as geophysics, hydrology, hydrogeology, aquaculture, etc. Thus, it may be of significance to adapt ECT to the fields with a high permittivity in which the conventional ECT is scarcely involved. To achieve this objective, a simplified 3D-ECT system was constructed with a high-precision inductance capacitance resistance meter and programmable logic controllers. In the aspect of sensing unit of the system, two geometries (i.e. cylinder and cube) of 3D sensors were constructed to probe anomalous blocks in water. Numerical simulations and physical experiments for both the sensors were performed to test the effectiveness of the constructed system to probe anomalous blocks in water. Furthermore, to justify the availability of this system in some possible fields, two experiments associated with applications of the 3D-ECT system were performed to measure the distribution of a plant root system in water, and to monitor the infiltration of water in soil in field. The experimental results demonstrate that the ECT system is capable of probing the location and rough size of anomalous blocks in water with both the sensors, determining the distribution of a plant root system in water, and monitoring the infiltration process of water in soil.