SETTLING VELOCITIES OF PARTICULATE SYSTEMS .7. KYNCH SEDIMENTATION PROCESSES - CONTINUOUS THICKENING

Continuous sedimentation is presented as a logical extension of a batch Kynch sedimentation process. All results are presented in graphical form as settling plots. Transient solutions are obtained to continuous Kynch sedimentation processes for an ideal suspension having a flux density function with one inflection point and two constant states as initial conditions. It is shown that there are only two steady-state solutions to the continuous settling of an ideal suspension in ideal thickener. The use of Kynch's theory for compressible industrial pulps introduces confusions in the interpretation of unit areas. The traditional equation to calculate unit areas for continuous thickeners based on Kynch's theory is not correctly, interpreted in the literature. A different explanation is given here.