| 摘要 |
An apparatus is provided for counting the average number and size of particulate material contained within a sample volume of a fluid within a transparent bottle without disturbing or breaking the seal, if any, on the bottle. To take a statistical count, a bottle to be inspected is gently shaken to suspend any particulate material therein. Following this operation, the particulate material continues to drift and move about within the bottle for a considerable period of time. A preferred embodiment of the apparatus of the invention makes use of this situation to scan a predetermined volume of fluid within the bottle with a well-defined beam of light by scanning a beam of light over and over a path within a confined area within the fluid for a selected interval of time, i.e., since the particulate material moves and drifts about, scanning over and over the same path is equivalent to scanning different elemental volumes of the fluid. Bursts of scattered light from particulate material illuminated by the beam within a defined region of the fluid along the beam of light are then optically collected, electronically detected, analyzed and counted when certain criteria are met during the selected interval of time. To provide a better statistical average, a larger volume may be scanned by scanning the beam over the path for a longer period of time and avera |
