title: Evaluation of multiple-scale 3D characterization for coal physical structure with DCM method and synchrotron X-ray CT.
abstract: Multiscale nondestructive characterization of coal microscopic physical structure can provide important information for coal conversion and coal-bed methane extraction. In this study, the physical structure of a coal sample was investigated by synchrotron-based multiple-energy X-ray CT at three beam energies and two different spatial resolutions. A data-constrained modeling (DCM) approach was used to quantitatively characterize the multiscale compositional distributions at the two resolutions. The volume fractions of each voxel for four different composition groups were obtained at the two resolutions. Between the two resolutions, the difference for DCM computed volume fractions of coal matrix and pores is less than 0.3%, and the difference for mineral composition groups is less than 0.17%. This demonstrates that the DCM approach can account for compositions beyond the X-ray CT imaging resolution with adequate accuracy. By using DCM, it is possible to characterize a relatively large coal sample at a relatively low spatial resolution with minimal loss of the effect due to subpixel fine length scale structures.
authors: Institute of Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors: Haipeng
authors: 0000-0002-1944-722X
authors: H
authors: Wang
authors: Institute of Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China ; CSIRO, Private Bag Box 33, Clayton, VIC 3169, Australia.
authors: Yushuang
authors: Y
authors: Yang
authors: State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030001, China.
authors: Jianli
authors: J
authors: Yang
authors: Institute of Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors: Yihang
authors: Y
authors: Nie
authors: College of Physics & Electronics Engineering, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China.
authors: Jing
authors: J
authors: Jia
authors: Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China.
authors: Yudan
authors: Y
authors: Wang