Flow Meters

A flow meter is a measuring device that is used to measure the volume or mass of a gas or liquid. ATO.com offers you various flow meters including magnetic flow meters, vortex flow meters, turbine flow meters, portable ultrasonic flow meters and small gas mass flow meters.

• The magnetic flow meter or electromagnetic meter for all conductive liquids has measuring pipe size range of DN15, DN20, DN25, DN32, DN50, DN100, DN125, DN150, DN200 for choice.
• The vortex flow meter is applicable pipe size from DN15 to DN300, suitable for liquids, gases and steam.
• The turbine flow meter can be used for liquid flow measurement such as water and oil in the pipe size from DN4 to DN200 mm.
• Portable clamp-on ultrasonic flow meter has a wide  measuring range of DN300-DN6000 with different size of transeducers - small/medium/large.
• Digital gas flow meter for air/oxygen/nitrogen has selectable flow range 0~10L/min (DN 6mm), 0~25L/min (DN 6mm) and 0~200L/min (DN 12mm). The small one is also available, designed for low gas flow rate in the gas lines of 3mm and 8mm in diameter.

What is an electromagnetic flow meter?

A magnetic flowmeter or electromagnetic flowmeter is an instrument, based on the principle of electromagnetic induction, to measure the flow rate of a conductive fluid by the electromotive force induced by the conductive fluid going through an external magnetic field. The structure of the magnetic flowmeter is mainly composed of magnetic circuit system, measuring conduit, electrodes, housing, liner, and converter.

Magnetic Flowmeter Features

• The measurement is not affected by changes in fluid density, viscosity, temperature, pressure and conductivity.
• There is no component to obstruct the flow in the measuring tube without pressure loss and with low requirement for the straight pipe section.
• If choosing reasonable sensor lining and electrode material, the magnetic flowmeter will has good corrosion resistance and abrasion resistance.
• The converter uses a novel excitation method, featuring low power consumption, zero point stability, high accuracy.
• The converter can be integrated with the sensor, i.e. integral type or be separated from the sensor, i.e. remote type.
• The sensor’s induced voltage signal is linearly related to the average flow velocity, so the measurement accuracy is high.

Flow meter applications

The flow meter can not only monitor the flow of the medium in real time, but also can feed back the information to the automation system, and the system can carry out subsequent data analysis and related automation control work. The automation of flow meter has greatly reduced a lot of manpower and material resources in many industrialized enterprises.

The role of the flow meter is very wide: It is used in industrial and agricultural production, national defense construction, scientific research, foreign trade, and various fields of people's life. In the production of petroleum industry, from the exploitation, transportation, smelting, processing and trade sales of petroleum, flow measurement runs through the whole process. Any link is inseparable from the flow measurement, otherwise the normal production and trade exchanges of the petroleum industry will not be guaranteed.

In the chemical industry, if the flow measurement is inaccurate, the distribution ratio of chemical components will be unbalanced. Then the product quality cannot be guaranteed, and serious production safety accidents will occur.

In the production of electric power industry, the flow meter plays an important role in the measurement and regulation of the flow of liquid, gas, steam and other media. The accuracy of flow measurement is not only of great economic significance to ensure the operation of power plants under the best parameters, but also with the development of high-temperature, high-pressure and large-capacity units, flow measurement has become an important part of ensuring the safe operation of power plants. If the instantaneous water flow of large-capacity boilers is interrupted or reduced, it may cause serious dry boiler or pipe burst accidents. This requires that the flow measurement device should not only measure accurately, but also issue an alarm signal in a timely manner.

In the production of iron and steel industry, the flow measurement of circulating water and oxygen (or air) in the steelmaking process is one of the important parameters to ensure product quality. In light industry, food, textile and other industries, flow measurement is also inseparable.

How to install digital gas flow detector?

The gas flow meter is preferably installed horizontally. Flow direction should be the same as the direction of the arrow mark on the meter body. If there may be particles or debris in the fluid, a filter is strongly recommended to be installed upstream of the meter.

Please follow the below steps to complete the installation:

1. Check if the meter is complete, no visual damage first.
2. Before installation, make sure that there is no debris or particles in the pipe.
3. During installation, it is recommended to first install the inlet of the flow meter and then the outlet. To ensure the accuracy of measurement, the straight pipe length should be remained enough at the installation site of flow meter, upstream no less than 10 times DN and downstream no less than 5 times DN.
4. Make sure all the wire connections of the flow meter is correct including the wires for LCD, input/output and communication.
5. Turn on the power supply, and ensure that the LCD works properly.
6. Slowly turn on the valve of the pipeline, and then the flow meter starts to measure the gas flow in the pipeline.

How to choose a flow meter?

From the point of view of the flow rate, if the flow rate is high relative to the flow rate, you can choose electromagnetic flowmeter, if the flow rate is relatively low, choose metal rotor can also be. Mainly also depends on other parameters, temperature and pressure, etc.

One-piece electromagnetic flowmeter in addition to measuring the general flow of conductive liquids, but also can measure the liquid-solid two-phase flow, high viscosity liquid flow and salts, strong acids, strong alkaline liquid volume flow.

Generally in the design of the selection, the lower flow rate is generally selected relatively high, if the large flow rate is less than 1M / S will not choose the electromagnetic class speed flowmeter. Is the imported electromagnetic flowmeter, generally at 0.1M / S, the accuracy will drop to 1.0 level, which is mainly due to: the converter directly affects the ability of the instrument to suppress external interference signals.