Continuous wave sonic analyzer
AssigneeEvoqua Water Technologies LLC
InventorPhilip Tinsley Dempster
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A gas analyzer uses continuous sonic signals through a conduit to determine the composition of a gas in the conduit. A transmitting transducer drives sonic signals at a fixed frequency and a second transducer receives the sonic signals. The phase shift between two signals corresponds to the speed of sound through the gas and is related to the composition of the gas. The electronic versions of these signals are processed by lowering, or dividing, the fixed frequency which expands the range of phase shift measurement and allows the determination of an expanded range for the gas composition. In an ozone generation system, the gas analyzer is highly suitable for determining the composition of gases derived from air as a gas of known composition and a calibration point.
Claims23
An analyzer for one or more gases derived from a first gas of known composition and speed of sound, each derived gas having a concentration of a component changed, the analyzer comprising:
- a first transducer, the first transducer driving continuous sound waves responsive to a fixed frequency signal source;
- a conduit acoustically connected to the first transducer, the conduit selectively receiving and holding samples of the first gas and one or more derived gases;
- a second transducer acoustically connected to the conduit opposite the first transducer, the second transducer receiving sound waves from the first transducer through the conduit and generating second transducer signals responsive to the received sound waves;
- and
- a processing unit constructed and arranged to receive fixed frequency signal source signals and the second transducer signals, the processing unit used to determine a relative phase shift between the frequency source signals and second transducer signals for a gas sample in the conduit, the relative phase shift corresponding to a difference of speed of sound in one gas sample relative to another gas sample, the processing unit including circuitry for lowering the frequency of the received fixed frequency source signals and second transducer signals to expand the range of measurement of the relative phase shift.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.