Software for on-line mass flow measurement of particles in pneumatic suspension

Reliable methods of metering the mass flow rate of particles in pneumatic pipelines have long been desirable in many industries, but the development of a suitable instrumentation system has proven to be an intractable problem world-wide. A prototype measurement system for this particular application has been developed using both radiological and electrodynamic sensors combined with software engineering and digital signal processing techniques. Principles and technical details of this sophisticated instrumentation system have been presented (Yan et al., 1994); however, the software aspects of this system have been reserved for the present paper. Major issues in design and applications of suitable software for mass flow measurement of particles in pneumatic suspension are discussed