Flowmeter for alumina application

Hi Raj. The only things I can think of is:

1. If it is heavy enough to slide down a chute, you could weigh it with strain gauges mounted on a tilting platform. You need to size the chute right to be accurate and get the angle of the chute steep enough to prevent blockages. I've seen this used on coal fines..

1. If you are pneumatically conveying it, you could try some kind of ultrasonic density measurement and, with a fixed volume being scanned, you should be able to work out the flow..

Am I close?

Cameron:-)

Ken, Will a mass difference principle (i.e., load cells installed at the source and receiver vessels) work for your application? You can even determine the amount water entering the system (weight difference between the mass measured in the receiver vessel minus the dry mass of carbon detected in the source vessel). We used such a principle for a lubricant plant (MgO) in India back in 1990. Regards, Raj

Endress+Hauser South Africa sold us some impact weighers on a project where we wished to measure flow of dry sand. In essence it is a plate mounted at an angle into the process stream. Increased particle flow causes the plate to deflect more and this in turn is related to flow. Obviously the plate has to be made of the same material as your pipeline in order to counter wear. You also have to enter it into your maintenance program.

Out of curiosity, can you correlate pressure in the tube with mass flow rate?

No, not really. Because there will be a continuous flow of air interspersed with slugs of material (alumina). I am not sure how the pressure can be correlated to mass flow. Raj