US 11,921,025 B2
Fluid monitoring system
Takashi Nagata, Castro Valley, CA (US); Ting-Chien Teng, Fremont, CA (US); Yohei Konishi, Tokyo (JP); and Kiyoshi Nozaki, Sagamihara (JP)
Assigned to Nikon Corporation, (JP)
Appl. No. 17/616,931
Filed by Nikon Corporation, Tokyo (JP)
PCT Filed Jun. 25, 2020, PCT No. PCT/US2020/039500
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Dec. 6, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2021/137892, PCT Pub. Date Jul. 8, 2021.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/870,355, filed on Jul. 3, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0307963 A1, Sep. 29, 2022
Int. Cl. G01N 15/06 (2006.01); G01N 11/04 (2006.01)
CPC G01N 15/0618 (2013.01) [G01N 11/04 (2013.01)] 13 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A slurry analysis system for estimating one or more characteristics of a slurry that includes a plurality of particles suspended in a dispersion medium, the slurry analysis system comprising:
a slurry filter that filters the slurry; and
a control system that (i) estimates a first characteristic of the slurry using a flow rate of a filtrate through the filter and a slurry filtration pressure of the slurry, wherein the first characteristic is a cake particle packing fraction of the slurry; and (ii) estimates a second characteristic of the slurry using a hypothetical model of random close packing, the second characteristic of the slurry being a particle agglomerate diameter; wherein the control system estimates the second characteristic of the slurry also using the cake particle packing fraction;
wherein the control system estimates the particle agglomerate diameter of the slurry using the following formula:

OG Complex Work Unit Math
wherein (i) Daggi is the particle agglomerate diameter of the slurry; (ii) ØRCP is a random close packing cake particle packing fraction; (iii) Dpart is a nominal particle size of the particles; and (iv) Øc is the cake particle packing fraction of the slurry.