English Clays Lovering Pochin & Company

Secretary of State

David J Watson

John G McWhirter

Edward R Pike

A method of monitoring the deflocculation of particles in a suspension, which particles, when deflocculated, are such that they can become aligned in an applied field, comprises applying a beam of radiation to a region of the suspension, applying a field to the region and detecting a change, if any, in radiation scattering properties of said region due to the aligning of deflocculated particles, if any, of the suspension in the field, wherein said suspension is passed through a cell which is transparent to said radiation and provides said region in which said field is produced and on to which region said radiation is applied and wherein said suspension is pumped through said cell and the field is applied in bursts timed with the pumping operation.

Monitoring deflocculated particles in a suspension

A digital signal processor has timing means for providing a succession of sample intervals in which incoming digital signals may have discrete values (e(o)). A serial delay such as a multi or single bit shift register progressively delays a digital signal giving a delayed signal (e(m)). An arithmetic section has a plurality of elements such as multi or single bit multipliers, or difference squares. Each element operates on non delayed signals (e(o)) and signals (e(m)) from an associated stage of the delay. An accumulating store has a plurality of channels each associated with and arithmetic element. Collectively the channels provide the required mathematical operation, e.g. auto or cross correlation function or structure function calculation. The interval of delay between channels is arranged to increase substantially geometrically e.g. by .sqroot.2. The overall delay increase may be variable and geometric although increases between adjacent channels may be approximations to a geometric increase. A variable clip level circuit may be incorporated into the input to the serial delay. In one configuration the delay intervals may be adjusted to be the same between each channel.

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David J Watson