GB745153A - Improvements relating to radiation gauges such as beta gauges - Google Patents

Abstract

745,153. Radiation density gauge. INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY CO., Ltd. Feb. 26, 1954 [April 7, 1953], No. 9351/53. Class 40 (3). [Also in Group XXX] Long, narrow articles such as cigarettes are fed to a radiation gauge in a direction transverse to their length so as to pass through the measuring station with their axes parallel to the direction of radiation. As shown, individual cigarettes from a continuous rod are fed to semicircular recesses in a drum 18 which they enter at the position 32. The drum is intermittently rotated by a gear wheel 20 having teeth 21 engaged by a rotating pin 22. Pin 22 is carried on a rotating cam 25 which rocks a lever 27 against the action of a spring 29. The lever 27 has a head 32 with a semi-circular recess and the operation is such that the head is lifted while the drum rotates to position a cigarette at the point 31 when the head is lowered and a radiation beam (e.g. Beta rays) passes axially through the cigarette to a detector (ionization chamber, Geiger tube or scintillation counter) at the far end. After a fixed period determined by the rotational speed of cam 34 head 30 is lifted, drum 18 is stepped on and the cigarette, if defective, is removed from the drum at 34. If not it is stripped from the drum at position 35. In further arrangements the grooves on the outside of one drum co-operate with internal grooves on a second drum whose axis is displaced from that of the first while in a still further arrangement the cigarettes are held in recesses in co-operating belts. The intermittent feed may be produced by a Geneva stop mechanism or the feed may be continuous when the gauge traverses for a period with the cigarette under test and is then quickly returned to its starting point.