This paper describes the design and development of a novel sedimentation kinetics analyser. The principle of operation of the device is simple and relies on the fact that the resonant frequency of a stiff reed performing simple harmonic motion in a fluid medium is directly related to the fluid hydrodynamic head. In the case of a settling dispersion, the hydrodynamic head decreases with time as the denser phase settles.

Settling velocities and solids flux profiles may in turn be easily obtained by continuous monitoring of the resonant frequencies of a number of reeds positioned at set levels along the settling zone. The system is used to evaluate the performance of a number of hydrodynamic correlations for predicting sedimentation kinetics for dilute systems comprising glass ballotini/water dispersions in the range 0 - 2.81 % v/v. It is found that the correlations proposed by Richardson and Zaki (1954) along with Garside and Al-Dibouni (1977) provide better agreement with the experimentally obtained data as compared with those proposed by Reed and Anderson (1980) and Batchelor (1972).