Investigations into sensing characteristics of circular thin-plate electrostatic sensors for gas path monitoring

Circular thin-plate electrostatic sensors are promising in gas path monitoring due to their advantages of non-intrusiveness and easy installation. The spatial sensitivity and filtering effect are two important performance parameters. In this paper, an analytically mathematical model of induced charge on a circular thin-plate electrode is first derived. Then the spatial sensitivity and filtering effect of the circular electrostatic sensor are investigated by numerical calculations. Finally, experimental studies are performed to testify the theoretical results. Both theoretical and experimental results demonstrate that circular thin-plate electrostatic sensors act as a low-pass filter in the spatial frequency domain, and both the spatial filtering effect and the temporal frequency response characteristics depend strongly on the spatial position and velocity of the charged particle. These conclusions can provide guidelines for the optimal design of circular thin-plate electrostatic sensors.