Institute Guilfoyle

Sensormatic Electronics Corporation

The Foxboro Company

Analysts, Inc.

Foxboro/trans-Sonics, Inc.

Guilfoyle, Inc.

Trans-Sonics, Incorporated

Vernon C Westcott

William W Seifert

John B Desjardins

Robert S Wenstrup

Everett O Olsen

Anthony C Gilby

Gordon W Chitty

John P Bowen

A ferrographic apparatus and method incorporate a priming operation that moves a priming fluid, in a direction opposite to the flow direction subsequently followed by the sample fluid, through a fluid pathway including the flow chamber. The fluid pathway is configured to facilitate dissipation of any gas bubble introduced into it during the priming operation and to reduce adventitious deposition of specimen material at locations other than the substrate. Sample fluid to be analyzed is added to the reservoir so as to form a bubble-free interface with the priming fluid, and the direction of movement through the flow chamber is reversed. The resulting continuous fluid column is advanced through the fluid pathway so that the sample fluid enters the flow chamber through the inlet port and passes through the magnetic field gradient, exiting through an orifice at the opposite end of the flow chamber serving as the outlet port. The flow chamber of the ferrograph is preferably contained in a deposition cassette comprising the substrate, a gasket and a platen which incorporates an integral fluid reservoir in communication with the inlet port. A pump is preferably configured to move each liquid through the fluid pathway at a distinct flow rate and in a direction according to the function performed by the respective liquid.

Ferrographic apparatus

Ferrographic method

A flow unit especially useful for closed-channel Ferrographic analysis comprises a glass substrate, a plastic platen, and an elastomeric gasket sheet disposed between them. Holes in the gasket sheet form flow chambers. Opposite free ends of the gasket sheet extend beyond the edges of the substrate and of the platen so as to allow pulling the ends in opposite directions parallel to the surface of the substrate and thereby shearing the bond between the substrate and the gasket.

Flow unit for ferrographic analysis

Method and apparatus for determining the concentration of optically attenuating materials in fluids, such as soot in diesel engine lubricating oils. An optical cell is employed in the form of a very thin tapered sample volume which is inserted into a light beam. The attenuation of the beam is measured at a plurality of locations along the varying thickness of the sample.

Optical determination of amount of soot in oil sample

Differential-pressure measuring apparatus comprising a casing providing a closed chamber filled with fluid and divided into two sections by a pressure-responsive element. The input pressures are applied to the two chamber sections respectively to develop a corresponding force on the pressure-responsive element. A sealed evacuated housing of non-magnetic material is in one chamber section and contains a double-tuning-fork (DTF) the resonant frequency of which varies with longitudinal tension force applied to the DTF. The force developed by the pressure-sensitive element is coupled by magnetic elements through the wall of the housing and to the DTF so as to control the resonant frequency of the DTF in accordance with the differential pressure to be measured. The DTF is activated to produce an output signal reflecting the differential pressure.

Differential-pressure apparatus employing a resonant force sensor

A coil assembly with reduced anisotropy has a pancake type loop winding of one or more turns with which is interrelated one or more strips or bodies of magnetically permeable material. The permeable material provides as compared with air a lower reluctance flux path that passes through the pancake coil from one side to the other thereof. The permeable strips are shown and described generally in the shape of an open or interrupted 'cross'.

Coil assembly with flux directing means

A process for magnetically separating non-magnetic material from a mixture by combining the mixture with a magnetizing solution containing the salt of a magnetic element. The magnetic atoms attach to available sites on the molecules of the non-magnetic material so as to develop in that material a positive susceptibility. Thus the material is responsive to the influence of a magnetic field to move the material to a region where it can be analyzed or recovered. Materials with low positive or negative susceptibilities are separated by suspending them in a magnetic salt solution which when subjected to the attraction of a magnetic field develops a differential buoyancy force, pushing the diamagnetic or weak paramagnetic material strongly away from the magnet. Disclosed are solutions of ferric chloride, manganese chloride, erbium chloride, dysprosium chloride, terbium chloride, and holmium chloride.

Magnetic techniques for separating non-magnetic materials

The concentrations of hyperfine particles in a fluid are monitored by flowing a predetermined quantity of the particle-containing fluid over a substrate in the presence of a force field which 'collects' the particles onto the substrate. The particles may be deposited on the substrate according to size, so that one can readily ascertain not only the particle concentration in the fluid, but the size distribution of the particles as well. This technique greatly concentrates the particles so that one can usually detect and monitor materials having extremely small particulate concentrations in the fluid from which they are collected.

Growing community of inventors

Lincoln, MA, United States of America

Vernon C Westcott