System for analyzing moisture content of materials such as cotton
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of Agriculture
InventorsRichard K. Byler, William S. Anthony
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Abstract
A system for analyzing the moisture content of bulk cotton or other non-homogeneous flowable solid substrates comprising: an electrical sensor consisting of multiple electrically independent measuring electrodes, each of which independently measures the moisture content of different portions of the sample; a means of pressing the mass against the surface of the sensor to form a face of uniform substrate density on that part of the mass which is pressed against the sensor; means for analyzing such face for moisture content; and a means for releasing the pressure on the halted mass to allow it to resume movement.
Claims19
A resistivity based moisture measuring means for non-homogeneous materials comprising:
- (a) a plurality of electrically independent electrode pairs, wherein one electrode of each of the electrode pairs is electrically common, resulting in a plurality of electrically independent measurement electrodes with an electrically common reference electrode for all of the measurement electrodes, and possessing non-entraining contact surfaces;
- and
- (b) signal processing means to independently review each electrode-based resistance measurement, culling those measurements which fall outside predetermined parameters, weighting, integrating and mathematically combining the signals of the remaining measurements, determining the resultant moisture content from the arithmetic mean of said remaining measurements and displaying the result.
A method for analyzing the moisture content of flowable non-homogeneous solids comprising:
- (a) collecting multiple substantially simultaneous resistance measurements from a plurality of electrically independent measuring electrodes;
- (b) independently calculating from each electrode-based resistance measurement a moisture content measurement and culling those measurements which fall outside predetermined parameters;
- and
- (c) determining the moisture content of said solid by weighting, integrating and mathematically combining the remaining measurements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.