Digital holographic sizer for coal powder size distribution measurement: preliminary simulation and experiment

On-line and continuous measurements of coal powder size distribution in coal-fired plants remain challenging. A coal powder size measurement system based on digital holography (DH) is developed. The effects of several factors, i.e. pixel size, recording distance, particle size, and concentration, on particle size measurement by the DH method are quantified by simulation, yielding the suitable pixel size, recording distance and particle concentration. The measurement system is implemented based on the simulation results and applied to measure particle size distribution of pulverized coal samples. Results show that the particles are clearly reconstructed from the hologram, and the measured size distributions agree well with those of the samples measured by laser particle size analyzer. This work shows that the digital holographic sizer has great potential in coal powder size distribution measurement in power plant pipes. (paper)