Abstract
To understand a two-phase flow, a liquid film thickness is one of the important factors. A lot of researches have been performed to measure liquid film thickness with various approaches. Recently, an electrical conductance method which uses the conductivity of the liquid film has been widely applied on measuring the liquid film thickness. Though the electrical method has an advantage in high spatial resolution, as the conductivity of liquid can be affected by its temperature variation, the conventional electrical conductance methods have a limitation in being applied on varying temperature conditions where a heat transfer is involved. The purpose of this study is to develop a three-ring liquid film sensor that overcomes the limitation of the conventional method. The three-ring conductance method can measure the film thickness regardless of temperature variation by compensating the change of liquid conductivity. Considering its application on a wide range of conditions such as high temperature or curved surfaces, the sensor was fabricated on flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) in this study. This paper presents the concept of the measurement method, design procedure, prototype sensor fabrication and calibration results.
