Estimation of settling velocities

This paper deals with settling velocities estimation, which is of major importance as settling velocities estimation is a prerequisite for properly dimensioning settling ranks. Several measurement procedures are presented and analyzed here. A general framework for identification which includes modelisation of the settlers and identification techniques is developed here-in. In this paper, we demonstrate that for a parametric set of settling density functions ρ(dv) = Σ(i)(N)= (l)θ(i)ρ(i)(dv) the mathematical relation between the measures M(t(i))(i) = l,N and the unknown quantities (0(i))(i) = (l,N) take the following linear form M(t(i)) = Σ(k)(N) = (l)0(k)∫R∅x(t(i),v)ρ(k)(dv). This relation makes it possible to have access to statistical errors in settling velocity estimates (0(i)) in assuming that a statistical model of measurement errors (M(t(i))) exists. The consequences of the choice of sampling times (t(i))(i) = (l,N) on the quality of the estimation are also investigated.