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US 10,520,409 B2Granted
Method of continuously measuring the shear viscosity of a product paste
AssigneeSociete des Produits Nestle S.A.
InventorsPeter Erdmann, Peter Fankhauser, Nina Laubacher, Martin Nydegger, Dale Richard Sanders, Christian Schmied, Michael Stranzinger, Gerhard Walthert
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Abstract
The present invention relates to a method of continuously determining the shear viscosity (η) of a product paste to be delivered to a spray nozzle for spray-drying applications wherein the continuous determination of the shear viscosity (η) of the product paste is carried out in a bypass to the product paste stream to the spray nozzle.
Claims11
A method of continuously determining a shear viscosity of a product paste in a processing line, the method comprising:
- continuously determining the shear viscosity of the product paste in a bypass to a stream of the product paste, the bypass comprising a pump, a flow meter, a differential pressure tube and a pulsation damper, and the shear viscosity is in a range of 20 to 1000 mPa·s, the shear rate is greater than 1000 s−1, and the Reynolds number is less than 2300;
- delivering the product paste to a spray nozzle for a spray-drying application;
- and
- adjusting a droplet size of the product paste, the adjusting comprises a control device calculating an output control parameter based on the shear rate and the shear viscosity of the product paste and also based on spray nozzle geometry parameters stored in a memory of the control device, the output control parameter is delivered to the spray nozzle which adjusts a swirl chamber piston to a calculated position to obtain a desired swirl chamber volume.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.