LabVIEW projects - Fluidized Bed, Electrometer measurements

Fluizdized Bed with Mass Flow Controllers and Electrometer setup

Introduction

In an experiment performed at DelftChemTech, Naoko Ellis wanted to measure the charges that build up within a fluidized bed. The fluidized bed itself had to be regulated by controlling the air pressure and flow. Some additional system pressures had to be measured as well.

The hardware

The presented vi combines the following hardware:

• Bronkhorst Mass Flow Controllers as well as Pressure Controllers (using DDE)
• National Instruments NI PCI-6281 / BNC-2090 (using daqMX)
• Keithley electrometer 6517A (using GPIB)

Principle

The basic principle of the vi is that there is a loop for each type of hardware. These loops run concurrently together with a loop to store the measured data, once the operator has pressed the designated button. Some of the program features:

• averiging of pressure measurements
• auto start of FLOWBUS DDE
• full control over Bronkhorst devices through sub-panel
• contineous electrometer measurements at 20 Hz

Downloads

• project-fluidized-bed-electrometer.zip

Note: All vi's have been made with LabVIEW 8.2 Full Development System.

Remarks

At the time the department of chemical technology of the Delft University of Technology ChemE was named DelftChemTech.