Estimation of settling velocities

This paper deals with settling velocities estimation, which is of major importance as settling velocities estimation is a prerequisite for properly dimensioning settling tanks. Several measurement procedures are presented and analyzed here. A general framework for identification which includes modelisation of the settlers and identification techniques is developed here-in. In this paper, we demonstrate that for a parametric set of settling density functions ρ(dv)=∑i=1Nθiρi(dv) the mathematical relation between the measures M(ti)i=1,N and the unknown quantities (θi)i=1,N take the following linear form M(ti)=∑k=1Nθk∫ φx(ti, v)ρk(dv). This relation makes it possible to have access to statistical errors in settling velocity estimates (θi) in assuming that a statistical model of measurement errors (M(ti)) exists. The consequences of the choice of sampling times (ti)i=1,N on the quality of the estimation are also investigated.