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US 2023/0226720 A1Published application
Calibrated Concrete Moisture Control System
AssigneeHolcombe CVI, LLC
InventorsBrent A. Holcombe, James K. Brewster
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to apparatus and methods to control the addition of moisture to materials for the production of concrete.
Claims24
A material mixing system, comprising:
- a plurality of bins;
- a conveyor assembly operable to transport materials received from said plurality of bins to a materials mixer;
- a water tank;
- a water pump fluidically coupled to said water tank;
- and
- a proportional control valve fluidically coupled to said water pump, said proportional control valve operable to achieve a target water flow rate which varies based on an amount of material delivered from said plurality of bins.
3 more elements
A concrete moisture control system, comprising:
- a water pump which generates a water flow in a conduit;
- a proportional control valve configured to operate between a closed condition and an open condition to regulate said water flow rate in said conduit;
- a controller operable to:
- retrieve a concrete mix recipe from a database, said concrete mix recipe defines relative proportion of materials to be dispensed from a plurality of bins;
- retrieve from said database a production rate table which defines an amount of materials to be dispensed per unit time from said plurality of bins;
- operate a water flow calculator to calculate a target water flow rate based on said amount of materials dispensed per unit time from said plurality of bins;
- retrieve from said database a water flow calibration table which correlates each of a plurality of proportional control valve positions between said closed condition and said open condition to each of a plurality of water flow rates through said proportional control valve;
- and
- actuate said proportional control valve based on said water flow calibration table to deliver said target water flow rate to said amount of materials dispensed from said plurality of bins.
6 more elements
24-47. (canceled)
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.