Patent ID: 8423303

Claim:
A method for real time measurement of mass flow rate of bulk solids, wherein said bulk solids are loaded, or unloaded, by a pneumatic transport system having a pipe section along which are located at least two spaced-apart pressure gauges (P 1 ,P 2 ), the method comprising: Determining pressure drop ΔP between said pressure gauges based on information provided by the pressure gauges during gas-solids flow of air and bulk solids through the pipe section, by a computing device, calculating suspension density ρ sus of the flowing mixture of air and bulk solids based on the pressure drop ΔP, and by a computing device, estimating the bulk solids mass flow rate M s at a given location along a given length of a pipeline, based at least on the calculated suspension density ρ sus of the flowing mixture, wherein said suspension density ρ sus of the flowing mixture is calculated using the following formula: Δ ⁢ ⁢ P = 1 2 ⁢ K ⁢ ⁢ ρ sus ⁢ LV 2 D ( 1 ) where K is the coefficient of friction of the bulk solid flowing through the pipeline, D is the pipe diameter, L is the length of the pipe section between pressure gauges (P 1 , P 2 ), V is the local air velocity at the section where the first pressure gauge (P 1 ) is arranged.