Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing

IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005
More info about this article: http://www.ndt.net/?id=24686

Feasibility of Using Radioactive Particle Tracking as an

Alternative Technique for Experimental Investigation in
Bubble Column Reactor

Mohd Amirul Syafiq Mohd Yunos1, Susan Maria Sipaun1, Siti Aslina Hussain2
1
Plant Assessment Technology, Malaysian Nuclear Agency, 43000 Kajang, Selangor.
2
Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor.

Corresponding author, email: [email protected]

Abstract. Radioactive particle tracking (RPT) is one of the non-invasive techniques for
monitoring and investigating multiphase flow system. This technique have been widely utilized
in the field of chemical process engineering for better understanding and optimizing process
hydrodynamics especially in the multiphase reactor such as bubble column reactor. Due to
opaque nature of industrial process systems, especially in the case of multiphase flows, non-
invasive methods based on ionizing radiation have been considered for evaluating the
hydrodynamic parameters. The feasibility study of radioactive particle tracking techniques in
quadrilateral bubble column reactor has been successfully achieved. The radioactive particle
tracking facility and data acquisition system has been developed and experimental calibration
using single particle radioactive particle 46Sc to investigate dynamics behaviour of quadrilateral
bubble column reactor is completed. The results indicated that there is back mixing behaviour in
the bubble column process. The results also reported that the radioactive particle 46Sc is still in
good condition and there is no radiation contamination problem arises while performing
radioactive particle tracking techniques. The RPT technique was performed to reveal the
instantaneous velocity and time-averaged liquid velocity in the current bubble column reactor.

1. Introduction
Before the advent of the first Malaysian pool-type nuclear research reactor TRIGA MARK II at the
Malaysia Nuclear Agency (formerly known as PUSPATI) in 1982, limited access to radioactive
materials, limited source quantity and high-cost of radioactive materials have restricted Malaysian
researchers in their efforts for establishing nuclear applications in oil and gas industries. Large-scale
utilization of radioisotopes as research and industrial investigating tools began in the late 1990s when
the Plant Assessment Technology Unit, Industrial Technology Division was established under Research
and Development program of Malaysian Nuclear Agency. Since then, a radioisotope that emits γ-ray
has been successfully used as nuclear gauges in research and industry. The versatility of nuclear gauges
innovation offers better plant troubleshooting and problem-solving ability in oil and gas industry. Recent
developments in the field of radioisotope application in industry have led to a renewed interest in
studying process behaviors using radiotracer techniques. Industrial radiotracers emerged as powerful
tools for troubleshooting and process optimization in multiphase flow systems. However, its
performance is limited by the hydrodynamic parameters and its behaviors in complex multiphase
reactors. Many critical and important information failed to be extracted using a conventional method.
Thus, an alternative investigation technique is required to overcome this situation.

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

Due to opaque nature of industrial process systems, especially in the case of multiphase flows, non-
invasive methods based on ionizing radiation have been considered for evaluating the hydrodynamic
parameters of multiphase reactors. These parameters include flow regimes, phase holdup, phase
distributions, velocity profiles, mixing patterns and turbulence fluctuations. Thus, the demand for
reliable experimental techniques to provide non-invasive, spatially, and temporally resolved data of
single-phase and multiphase systems is required to assess the accuracy of complex models. The role of
industrial radiotracer technology in industries has received increased attention across some disciplines
in recent years. In the last decades, a significant effort to utilize γ-ray emission techniques for measuring
positions and velocities in three dimensions in multiphase system reactors has been highlighted. One of
the non-invasive techniques for monitoring multiphase flow system is known as a radioactive particle
tracking (RPT) technique. This technique has been implemented extensively to investigate
hydrodynamics characteristic in a great variety of multiphase flow systems [1].
Radioactive particle tracking (RPT) techniques has been widely utilized in the field of chemical
process engineering for getting better understanding and optimizing process hydrodynamics especially
in the multiphase reactor non-invasively. This technique applied a simple approach where an array of
scintillation detectors is used to detect emitted isotropic γ-rays signal from radioactive particles over a
sufficiently long period of time as to track the motion of that particle at a specific position and location.
The radioactive particle position at certain time can be reconstructed from the widely used rigorous
phenomenological model which correlates the number of photons detected and effectively measured by
a scintillation detector and the positions of the emitting γ-ray radioactive particle. This strategy also
involves the reconstruction of the tracer location histories known as calibration map from its real
position coordinates by solving a minimization problem between the experimental and calibrated data.
This is done based on tracking the motion of a neutrally buoyant single radioactive particle in order to
visualize and validate the flow inside a specific volume [1,2,3,4].
There are relatively few historical studies in this technique with the first detailed study of radioactive
particle tracking conducted by Kondukov et al. [5]. However, there is an inadequacy in his data
acquisition system where quantitative results were failed to be secured. In his work, Kondukov et al. [5]
traced a radioactive particle inside gas-solid phases in fluidized bed reactor by using 6 units scintillation
detectors. Similar numbers of detectors were also used by Meek [6] for tracing solid material in turbulent
liquids using different experimental design with detectors mounted on an axially moving carriage to
move along with the solid particle. Unfortunately, the carriage failed to maintain its speed with tracer
particle leading to data losses. Another researcher, Lin et al. [2] introduced first innovative computer-
aided radioactive particle tracking known as CARPT with low-resolution detection from 12 unit of
detectors analogue processing to investigate the solid dynamics inside the gas-solid phase of fluidized
bed reactor. From then on, system transformation to the advanced radioactive particle tracking system
becomes the center of attention for better hardware improvement such as those related to the data
acquisition systems. The data acquisition system developed by Lin et al. [2] has been upgraded by
Moslemian [7] where the digital pulse counts meter were introduced and has been successful in
providing high-speed counting rates.
In 1991, Devanathan [3] utilized the radioactive particle tracking for investigating the first liquid
phase dynamic in a gas-liquid column reactor test rig by introducing a neutrally buoyant radioactive
particle [3,8]. Subsequently, the same principles have been applied by Yang, [9] to perform better
numerical calculation using a weighted least-squares method in particle tracking post-processing
techniques, extensively. The position rendering method proposed by Yang, [9] promoted another
invention on the rigorous phenomenological relation generated using Monte Carlo simulation by Larachi
et al. [10] followed by the development of enhanced algorithm with direct back-propagation neural
network model [11].
Much of the literature since the mid-1990s emphasizes the use of non-invasive radioactive particle
tracking techniques for the characterization of multiphase reactors. Research into radioactive particle
tracing applications in multiphase flow system has a long history. There are a large number of published
studies that describe the uses of radioactive particle tracking technique for gas–solid–liquid phase

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

investigations in fluidized bed reactor [1,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24], solid phase in

cylindrical tumbler reactor [25,26], gas–solid and gas–liquid phase in risers [27,28,29,30,31], liquid
phase in circulating draft tube photobioreactor [32], solid–solid phase in V-blender reactor [33], and
pebble bed reactors [34,35]. However, there is very little published research on the gas-liquid phase in
quadrilateral bubble column reactors which need to be comprehensively investigated and examined
using radioactive particle tracking technique.
Surprisingly, there have been no preliminary works reported for the application of radioactive
particle tracking techniques in Malaysia. The primary challenge faced by researchers in Malaysian is
the limited capability to produce or purchase radioactive material at a reasonable cost. In addition, the
radioactive particle tracking hardware and portable data acquisition system is currently not suitable for
field testing in the petrochemical industry. This scenario indicates the need to set up innovative RPT
facility for hydrodynamics investigation of industrial-scale reactors in Malaysia. Therefore, this study
seeks to remedy those situations by designing and utilizing radioactive particle tracking as an alternative
technique for the first experimental investigation in bubble column reactor in Malaysia. Furthermore,
this study also set out to gain further understanding of the feasibility of using this alternative method for
gas-liquid phase behavior. A specialized radioactive particle which neutrally buoyant in water phase
will be used together with the fixed radiation detectors around the quadrilateral bubble column reactor.
This radioactive particle tracking technique is using the simulated calibration map using MCNPX code
to track the particle position in order to reconstruct the particle trajectory and visualize the velocimetry
behavior of the water phase in bubble column reactor. The development of data acquisition system
hardware and software will also be discussed.

2. Methodology

2.1. Experimental Setup

The experiments were carried out in a quadrilateral bubble column reactor test rig with an internal
diameter of 200 mm and a height of 1800 mm. Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of a quadrilateral
bubble column reactor used for radioactive particle tracking measurement. The quadrilateral column
was fabricated using Perspex® acrylic glass (density = 1.18 g/cm 3) with inner cross-section equal to 200
mm x 200 mm and wall thickness equal to 3 mm. The column is filled up with 0.04 m 3 normal tap water
of ambient pressure and at a room temperature. The height of the fluid volume (water level) referred to
the stationary liquid level was fixed at 1000 mm. The air as a gas phase was supplied from centralized
compressors with a working pressure of 1.5 MPa. A pressure regulator and flow meters regulated the
air flow rate at a fixed rate of 20 liters per minutes. Air is purged into the reactor to create air bubbles
for aeration from the bottom by passing through perforated air distributor known as sparger plate at the
bottom of the bubble column reactor. The sparger design D used in this study has a porosity of 0.18%
and the total opening cross-sectional area of 70.86 mm2. It consists of 361 holes of 0.5 mm diameter
with the triangular pitch of 1 cm apart.
Radioactive particle tracking facility consists of an array of radiation detectors and data acquisition
systems. Ten (10) units 2 inch x 2 inch (5.08 cm diameter x 5.08 cm long) crystal of sodium iodide
activated with thallium, NaI (Tl) scintillation detectors (crystal density = 3.67 g/cm 3) are strategically
fixed around the bubble column reactor as can be seen in Figure 1. The detectors are positioned on five
planes alternately, and the distance between the consecutive planes is equal to 20 cm. The detectors are
held by aluminium extrusion profile bar structures which in turn are supported on stainless steel round
bars with dimension 3.81 cm x 3.81 cm positioned at 90° intervals around the column. Two detectors
are placed at one level to face each other, surrounding the column with 180º spacing. The distance
between the surface of the detector and the column wall is fixed at 5 cm equally. The arrangement of
the detectors in each plane is shown in Figure 2.

When radiation passed each scintillation detector, the radiation counts were collected instantaneously
and recorded into a computer. The hardware components used for this experiment is a multi-channel

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

analyzer Ludlum Model 4612 Counter, and a 12-detector single channel analyzer (SCA) with RS232
control to compute the signals from the scintillation detectors. Block diagram of the data acquisition
system is shown in Figure 3. The desktop computer or industrial durable notebook is used to control all
the parameters, obtain and display data, and extract results. The physical picture of radioactive particle
tracking setup for bubble column reactor can be seen in Figure 4. This versatile data acquisition
hardware system set up is safe to be used in oil and gas industries. The compact set of the multi-channel
analyzer, scintillation detector and durable notebook are using minimal electrical power source.
Therefore, the set up can reduce the potential to induce spark and ignition that increase the risk of fire
and explosion inside refinery plants.

Bubble column
reactor

Aluminium Frame

NaI(Tl) Detector

Desktop
PC

Multichannel
Analyzer

Figure 1. Schematic diagram for the quadrilateral bubble column reactor and radioactive particle
tracking setup.

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

D9 D10

D7

D8

D5 D6

D3

D4

D1 D2

Figure 2. The arrangement of the scintillation detectors in experimental setup

Detector 1

Detector 2

Detector 3
Detector 4

Detector 5 Ludlum
Model 4612 Desktop Computer
Detector 6 12-Channel Counter
Detector 7
Software RPTv2.0
Detector 8
ctor
Detector 9

Detector 10

Figure 3. Block diagram of the data acquisition system.

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

b. MCA Ludlum Model 4612

a. RPT array of scintillation c. Data acquisition system

detector
Figure 4. Physical pictures of RPT experimental setup.

2.2. The Radioactive Particle

Due to various advantages, a scandium radioactive particle with an activity of 4 mCi was selected for
this experiment. This selection is made based on the fact that the radioisotope 46Sc has nuclear transitions
emitting gamma radiation with sufficient energy for a radioactive particle tracking application.
Scandium has a half-life of 83.8 days and presents two photopeaks, one at 889 keV and one at 1121
keV. In radioactive particle tracking technique, a single tiny radioactive particle that is naturally buoyant
is used for tracking the motion of liquid phase in bubble column reactor. Enough space is required to
maintain the buoyancy of the particle equivalent to water density. Taking this fact into consideration, a
hole is made in polyethylene bead that contains the scandium glass and the empty gap of the hole is
filled sufficiently with the Araldite epoxy glue to prevent radioisotope dilution, dispersion, and leakage
that may lead to radioactive contamination inside and outside the reactor. The air gap and amount of the
glue inside the particle are adjusted to match the density of water. About 20 mg scandium glass (Sc 2O3)
was encapsulated in polypropylene beads sphere particles of diameter 2–3 mm so that the effective
density of the tracer particle is closely matched with the density of liquid phase. Final target density
practically close to the water density of 1.001 kg/m3 at ambient temperature where the neutrally buoyant
particle is achieved. The γ-ray emitter 46Sc radioactive particles are activated by thermal neutron
activation in a nuclear reactor. In this study, the particle was irradiated at 750 kW for 6 hours with
neutron flux density of 1.2x1012 thermal neutrons per cm2/s inside the core of TRIGA-Mark II reactor
at the Malaysian Nuclear Agency.

2.3. RPT Data Acquisition Software

Detection of single radioactive which emits gamma radiation was achieved by the use of a scintillation
detector without collimator positioned around the bubble column. The response signals produced by the
detector were recorded continuously at the specific interval period of time. Data acquisition companion
software for acquiring data and recording response signals from sets of scintillation detector in

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

radioactive particle tracking experiment initially developed by Rahman et al. [36] for study the
hydrodynamic behaviour in quadrilateral bubble column reactor. National Instruments LabView 8.6
system design software has been utilized to develop radioactive particle tracking data acquisition system
software. This system software consists of an interactive scanning control graphical user interface
(GUI), a data acquisition from 12-channel RS-232 serial interface counter, and a multichannel analyser
(MCA). Rahman et al. [36] reported that the second version of the software was successfully upgraded
and currently known as RPTv2.0. The graphical user interface (GUI) for this software includes three
operating modes that consist of system setup and configuration mode, scanning mode and multichannel
analyser, upper-level discriminator, and lower-level discriminator (MCA & LLD/ULD) setup mode.
The system setup and configuration mode enabled the configuration of COMM port for
communication between the multichannel analyzer and the desktop host communication port. This can
be seen in Figure 5. Operating system input setup such as total scanning time, the configuration setting,
and output files setup are available in this mode. Before running the data acquisition mode or scan mode,
a suitable window of the region of interest for gamma radiation spectrum must be set in the software.
Thus, the MCA and LLD/ULD setup mode shown in Figure 6 can be used to configure the lower and
upper levels of gamma spectrum with communication between the software and a multichannel analyzer.
This mode is designed to help the user in selecting the appropriate values for LLD and ULD parameters
between 0 to 3300 millivolts. The graphical user interface of LLD/ULD adjustment of gamma spectrum
result for 46Sc radioactive particle tracer is shown in Figure 7. The graphical user interface for scanning
mode is shown in Figure 5. In this mode, the integration time (counts rate) and the total period of
acquisition time both have to be determined before starting the data acquisition process. The integration
time describes the duration of each data count and period of acquisition means the total time of the data
acquisition process. Ludlum Model 4612 multichannel analyser has the capability to obtain the data
counts at -higher speeds up to 50 ms per count. The scan mode also allows user to control the start and
stop the scanning process. The updated count signals are displayed with respect to the integration time
and the scanning process is continued until desired counting time is reached. Immediately upon the
completion of data acquisition process, a pop-up graphical user interface will inform the user to save the
acquired results in the specified folder location [36]. Figure 8 shows the flowchart for data acquisition
system process by utilizing RPT hardware and software.

Figure 5. The graphical user interface (GUI) for RPT software version 2.0.

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

Figure 6. The MCA and LLD/ULD setup mode GUI.

Figure 7. LLD/ULD marker adjustment in gamma spectrum results for 46Sc.

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IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

Figure 8. Flow chart for data acquisition system process.

3. Results and Discussions

The present study was designed to determine the feasibility of using radioactive particle tracking as an
alternative technique for hydrodynamics behavior investigation in bubble column reactor. The
radioactive particle tracking facility has been successfully developed. The facility includes the system
hardware that consists of pilot-scale quadrilateral bubble column reactor, ten sets of scintillation detector
with special detector holder, and data acquisition system that used compact and versatile multichannel
analyzer. One of the primary concern in using alternative radiotracer method is the radiological safety
to radiation workers and members of public. In this study, encapsulated 46Sc radioactive particle inside
polypropylene bead was successfully prepared to prevent contamination inside the reactor vessel.
Before the RPT experiment was carried out, the position of the particle has to be reconstructed
accurately from the analyzed radiation signals. The particles will be placed at known positions
depending on the size and volume of the vessels to be mapped. There are few methods used to calibrate
the particle position in radioactive particle tracking technique. First method uses a calibration device
which was able to calibrate the locations of radioactive particle in angular, axial and radial directions
using the automatic computerized device. This device is known as computer-aided radioactive particle
tracking (CARPT) [13]. The second method is using position reconstruction by utilizing the Monte Carlo
simulation code for solving a minimization problem between measured counts and a rigorous
phenomenal model that relates the position of the emitter to the number of counts recorded by each
detector surrounding the system. The detectors measure different levels of radiation depending on the
position of the emitter. Using an appropriate model, the exact location of the tracer can then be obtained..
Generally, in Monte-Carlo based reconstruction, the intensities of γ-rays emitted by tracer particle at
specified locations are documented by positioning scintillation detectors around the vessel during the
calibration stage.

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

Figure 9. Manual radioactive particle calibration holder devices.

In this study, manual calibration process using special equipment is chosen because automatic
calibrations devices are currently not available for radioactive particle tracking. In order to track particle
inside the bubble column reactor accurately, a conventional benchmark experiment was carried out using
manual calibration equipment to validate the particle position reconstructed by Monte Carlo simulation.
This equipment was fabricated using stainless steel with single radioactive particle holder as can be seen
in Figure 9. The calibration equipment was designed to reconstruct particle histories. Figure 10 indicates
that distance versus radiation signals relationships known as calibration curve for the detector provides
the basis to reconstruct the tracer particle instantaneous position. A comparison between the simulated
particle positions reconstructed using Monte Carlo algorithm and the particle positions obtained
experimentally is shown in Figure 10. The comparison shows a great matching between these two sets
of coordinates. MCNPX code was applied to calculate a map of counts containing a total of 2600 grid
points as a function of particle coordinates. In total, 26000 data sets have been successfully obtained
with ten detectors were used for the reconstruction of instantaneous positions with the aid of the 2600
known coordinates.

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

100
Simulation
90 Experimental

80

70

60
Distance, cm

50

40

30

20

10

0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000
Counts
Figure 10. A comparison between MNCPX simulation and experimental distance counts rate
measurement for Detector 5.

Upon completing the calibration step, the neutrally buoyant radioactive tracer particle will be left
freely moving with the liquid phase inside bubble column reactor while the scintillation detectors collect
count intensities at a suitable frequency (10-20 Hz) depending on the flow environments and the activity
of the radioactive particle. A sampling frequency of 20 Hz and total acquisition time of 2.5 hours is used
in this study. This is because the homogeneous regime conditions in the bubble column reactor with
superficial gas velocity is 0.0083 m/s. Figure 11 shows the data acquisition results for ten detectors at
different planes and radioactive particle 46Sc axial trajectories for the acquisition time 2.5 minutes was
illustrated at different levels. By using the calibration curve and the reconstruction algorithms, the
Lagrangian trajectory of the radioactive tracer can be reconstructed and the result is as shown in Figure
12 (a) and (b). The experiments will be operated for a sufficient time to allow the radioactive particles
numerously explore the whole region of bubble column reactor so the time-averaged velocity in each
compartment reaches a plateau. This will ensure enough statistics related to radioactive tracer particle
trajectories, which represents the liquid dynamics of the bubble column reactor.

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

Det 1

Det 2

Det 3

Det 4
Counts per 50 ms

Det 5

Det 6

Det 7

Det 8

Det 9

Det 10

Time
46
Figure 11. Radioactive particle Sc axial trajectories for the 2.5 minutes at different detector level.

Once the distance of the particles from the set of detectors is evaluated, a weighted regression scheme
is used to estimate the position of the particle at a given sampling instant in time. Thereby a set of
instantaneous position data is obtained that gives the positions of the particle at successive sampling
instants. Time differentiation of the successive particle positions yields the instantaneous Lagrangian
velocities of the particle as a function of time and position of the particle. From the Lagrangian particle
velocities, ensemble averaging is performed to calculate the average velocities of the liquid. For
Cartesian coordinate system, the instantaneous velocity (u1) and mean velocity (u) were calculated by
determining the magnitude of the velocity vector (speed) as follow:

𝑢𝑥 = (𝑥2 − 𝑥1 )(𝑡2 − 𝑡1 )
(1)
𝑢𝑦 = (𝑦2 − 𝑦1 )/(𝑡2 − 𝑡1 )
(2)
𝑢𝑧 = (𝑧2 − 𝑧1 )/(𝑡2 − 𝑡1 ) (3)
(𝑦2 − 𝑦1 ) (𝑧2 − 𝑧1 )
𝑢1 = {(𝑥2 − 𝑥1 )(𝑡2 − 𝑡1 )}𝑖 + { }𝑗 +{ }𝑘 (4)
(𝑡2 − 𝑡1 ) (𝑡2 − 𝑡1 )
𝑢 = √𝑢𝑥 2 + 𝑢𝑦 2 + 𝑢𝑧 2 (5)

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IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

100 100 100

90 90 90

80 80 80

70 70 70

60 60 60
z, cm
z, cm

z, cm

50 50 50

40 40 40

30 30 30

20 20 20

10 10 10

0 0 0
0 20 0 20 0 10 20
x, cm x, cm x, cm
(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 12. Lagrangian trajectory of radioactive particle 46Sc in bubble column reactor with
superficial gas velocity 0.083 m/s for (a) 25 sec acquisition time (b) 75 sec acquisition time. (c) Time-
averaged velocity vector plots. (d) A graphical image of the dispersed bubble for sparger design type
D.

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

40
Top Region

30 Middle Region
Bottom Region
Axial Liquid Velocity (cm/s)

20

10

0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19

-10

-20
Dimensionless radius
Figure 13. Comparison of axial liquid velocity at different region of column.

The instantaneous liquid velocity in Figure 12(c) has been calculated by time differentiating between
two successive locations of the tracer particle. The time-averaged liquid velocity is obtained by
averaging the instantaneous velocity of each cell by taking the mean of the number of occurrences
obtained for each sampling compartment as shown in Figure 13. The results presented the comparison
between bubble column region at top, middle and bottom of the vessel. Thus, this study concluded that
the alternative RPT technique is also capable of providing information about the fluid dynamic
parameters.

4. Conclusions
The feasibility study of radioactive particle tracking techniques has been successfully completed. The
radioactive particle tracking facility has been developed and experimental calibration using single
particle radioactive particle 46Sc to investigate dynamics behavior of quadrilateral bubble column reactor
has been accomplished. The RPT technique was performed to reveal the instantaneous velocity and
time-averaged liquid velocity of bubble column reactor. The results indicated that there is back mixing
behavior in the bubble column process. The results also reported that the radioactive particle 46Sc is still
intact and there is no radiation contamination problem arises while performing radioactive particle
tracking techniques.

Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Ministry of Science, Technology and
Innovation Malaysia in the frame of Science Fund Grant (03-03-01-SF0245) and International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) through Technical Cooperation Project Number RAS/1/012 and Research
Contract No.17374. The authors are also gratefully acknowledged staffs of the Faculty of Engineering,
Universiti Putra Malaysia, Industrial Technology Division, and Malaysian Nuclear Agency for their
support and supervision. Thanks to the Nuclear Power Division for the provision of neutron irradiation
and research facilities. A special acknowledgement is also attributed to members of Plant Assessment
Technology Group (PAT), who have involved in the design, fabrication, experimental setup and
facilities for enabling this work to be presented.

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IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 554 (2019) 012005 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/554/1/012005

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Malaysia International NDT Conference and Exhibition 2018 IOP Publishing
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