High speed sorting (US Patent 3,712,469, 1973)

F. Dwyer, R. Thompson and E. Wulff received US Patent No. 3,712,469 on January 23, 1973, filed October 28, 1971. It was assigned to Colonial Sugar Refining Co Ltd.

The patent's abstract:

Apparatus for rapidly and reliably sorting valuable bodies from non-valuable bodies on the basis of a detectable parameter thereof. The apparatus comprises means for inferring the profile/locations and paths with respect to time of actually individual bodies when moving as a closely packed stream at a known rate; for obtaining value/location signals with respect to time diagnostic of value sources within the stream; for relating the time base value/location signals to actually individual bodies having corresponding time base profile/locations; for assigning valuable or non-valuable nominations to appropriate such bodies; and for precisely deflecting say the nominated valuable bodies from the stream. The invention is particularly applicable to the high speed sorting of size-classified rocks, such as pieces of ore, and provides a technique of logically distinguishing between the component rocks of a clustered association moving as a spurious unit in the stream. By separating out the component rocks of a spurious unit, it becomes possible according to the invention precisely to assign value nominations thereto and to effect sorting with accuracy.

Where it was listed

• Asbestos, May 1973, in its patents department (the year's issues)