Reliably measuring the condition of mineral-based transfer fluids using a permittivity sensor – practical application to thermal fluid heat transfer

This article describes a series of experiments to assess the performance and suitability of a permittivity sensor in the area of heat transfer. The permittivity sensor measures condition index and temperature of a fluid. A series of 5 experiments was conducted. They assessed the reproducibility of the sensor using both clean and dirty fluid samples, and showed the sensor had good reproducibility based on calculations of coefficients of variation. The sensor also detected water contamination, assessed from construction of a stimulus-response curve to step-wise increases in water and from real-life samples where water content was reported to be out of specification. Further experiments tested the association between condition index and both water content and fluid cleanliness in a real-life setting. Results demonstrated the sensor that condition index reflected changes in fluid water and cleanliness and was therefore a measure of fluid condition. The implication of these findings is that the sensor can be used to make rapid and reliable assessments of fluid condition using only small samples (i.e., <50 ml). The sensor may be of benefit to customers that need to make a lot of regular samples over a large processing site, such as concentrated solar power plants.