University of Washington

The Mitre Corporation

Alexander V Mamishev

Nicholas C Donnangelo

Walter S Kuklinski

Andrei Afanasiev

Tsrong-Yi Wen

Systems and methods are provided for remotely identifying and classifying materials based on their respective complex permittivity features. Materials of interest to be identified in later inspections are cataloged according to their respective complex permittivity features by applying electromagnetic fields to them and determining their complex permittivity features. That library of features is used to compare field measurements taken during an inspection to determine the presence of a material of interest and to identify it.

Classifying and identifying materials based on permittivity features

An electrostatic precipitator may have different collecting and repelling electrodes surfaces. For example, a collecting electrode may have an internal conductive portion. A non-conductive or less conductive open cell foam covering may be applied to the conductive core of the collecting electrode. The foam may have cell sizes that vary within the volume of the foam or along the length of the foam. Accordingly the cell size of the foam near the leading, with respect to the direction of airflow, portion of the collector may be larger than the cell size of the foam nearer the trailing end of the collector and/or the cell size of the foam near the exterior of the collector may be larger than the cell size of the foam nearer to the interior of the collector.

Electrostatic precipitator

An electrostatic precipitator is constructed with collecting and repelling electrodes. The collecting electrode is partially shielded from gas shear forces by a shielding structure. The shielding structure is mounted to reduce gas flow along a surface of the collector and includes passages for charged particles to travel to be captured by the collector.

An electrostatic precipitator may have a set of collector electrodes and a set of repelling electrodes. The conductive portions of the collector electrodes and/or the repelling may be arranged in segments. The segments may have differing electrical properties or may be electrically isolated to facilitate differing potentials along an airflow path. The differing potentials results in differing electric field strengths along the airflow path.

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Alexander V Mamishev