Measuring Viscous and Highly Adhesive Media Based on the corTEC® Technology
With its corTEC® technology, EBE has a high-performance sensor platform for level sensors. In these applications in particular, the integrated spectroscopic evaluation can distinguish whether a tank is actually filled with water or whether the tank wall is only wetted by a thin film of water. In the case of highly conductive or strongly adhesive media, however, this method can reach its limits. For example, if certain physical effects are located in a frequency range that lies outside the bandwidth of the system. These effects can be used to distinguish a film from a voluminous liquid. EBE has developed the corTEC® platform specifically for this challenge.
With this technology, the system excites the measuring electrodes with a high-frequency signal. It evaluates the transmission behavior. The signal frequency is so high that the parameters necessary to distinguish between liquid volumes and films become visible. Due to the measuring frequencies, users have to observe regulatory stipulations with respect to radiation. In addition, the system has to be protected against the coupling of interferences. For these reasons, corTEC® combines a broadband noise measurement technology with correlation signal processing. Due to the excitement of the electrodes by a broadband noise signal, the radiated performance density remains low. Furthermore, it is distributed across a wide frequency range. Due to the combination with processes from the correlation measuring technology, the sensors can now compensate the irradiation of external interferences. Further error sources, such as temperature drift and aging, can also be compensated.
