Particle size monitoring by a nucleonic density gauge

Particle-size monitoring has become routine plant practice, and on-line mea surement techniques have facilitated the proper control and monitoring of p article size. In this paper, the progress on art on-line size measurement t echnique using a gamma-ray source is discussed. The gamma-ray is emitted fr om a nucleonic density gauge (NDG) that serves as a slurry density-measurem ent device. This unit is calibrated and tested to predict the slurry densit y. Batch experiments were conducted to study the variation in slurry densit y of different types of ores, namely, quartz, bauxite and hematite. This de lta, in turn, is used to predict the size distribution of the solid particu late material making up the slurry. To calculate this size distribution fro m om the slurry density, the theory of incremental sedimentation is used. E xperimental results show that the predicted size distribution compares well with the actual size distribution, as measured by the Andreasen pipette te chnique. Finally, a simplified scheme is proposed to monitor on-line size d istribution using the nucleonic density gauge.