Patent ID: 7959546

Claim:
A centrifuge for extracting particulates from a continuous flow of fluid, comprising: a rotor; a passage for constraining at least a portion of the flow of the fluid as laminar flow; an inducer with acceleration regions in which direction of the fluid is gradually changed form a radial flow direction to a tangential flow direction, the inducer having a plurality of inducer vanes attached to a spindle, the inducer vanes receiving fluid at an obtuse angle, the inducer vanes being curved along an arc; spindle exit ports adapted to fluidly connect the spindle with the acceleration regions; and inducer exit ports adapted to receive the fluid from the spindle exit ports and deliver the fluid to the acceleration regions, wherein: the passage is adapted to direct the laminar flow orthogonally to centrifugal forces imparted to the fluid by rotation of the rotor; and the flow of the fluid is constrained between an outer surface of the passage and an inner constraining surface of the rotor, the inner constraining surface of the rotor being disposed radially outward from the spindle.