METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING THE FLOW STATE OF FLOWABLE SUBSTANCES

摘要

A method and apparatus for determining the flow state of a flowable substance by transmitting ultrasonic or ultrasound waves of constant frequency to a spatial region of the substance, receiving ultrasonic waves backscattered by the substance, converting the backscattered ultrasonic waves into a primary signal which is amplitudeand phase-modulated in accordance with the backscattering and demodulating the primary signal in order to obtain a modulation signal. This modulation signal can be divided into a spectrum of signal components of different frequency and possessing pseudo periods which are defined as the time intervals between successive momentary values of the modulation signal, such momentary values corresponding to one another. The time duration corresponding to a predetermined number of pseudo periods is compared with a predetermined time duration.