Study on Capacitance Sensor Simulation of Ice Thickness Measurement Based on ANSYS

Abstract

The formation and disappearance of ice changes will cause the change of its capacitance, we can use this features of air, ice and water has different capacitance under different temperature to measure the ice thickness. The capacitance sensor is designed based on this theory that can measure the ice thickness in the harsh environment more effective. Based on the finite element simulation software ANSYS and the detail experiment data the capacitance method for measuring ice thickness have been verified. As the parallel capacitance sensor has higher production process and the planar multi-electrode has lower capacitance and it has unstable structure, Optimized the size of capacitor plate and redesigned the structure of capacitance sensor with the software ANSYS. To overcome the disadvantages of general capacitance sensor, the new capacitance sensor that is designed based on the planar multi-electrode, it has a strong structure, easy to install, and higher capacity value can be measured easily.

Keywords

• Ice thickness measurement
• Capacitance
• Sensor
• ANSYS.