Electronic flow meters are industrial digital flow meters for fluid flow rate measurement. In more cases, people will default that Electronic flow meters are electromagnetic flowmeters.
Electronic flow meters types like Magnetic, Vortex, and Ultrasonic flow meters. Electronic flow meters are suitable for Industrial liquid, water, natural gas, petrol, fuel, air, and more fluid flow. Electronic flow meters convert the monitored fluid flow into electronic signals. Including pulse signal, 4-20mA standard signal, etc.
Sino-Inst offers a variety of Electronic flow meters for flow measurement. If you have any questions, please contact our sales engineers.
Sino-Inst, the manufacturer of Electronic flow meters. We will answer your various questions about Electronic flow meters.
What is electronic flow meter?
A flow meter is a device used to measure the volume or mass of a gas or liquid. Flow meters are referred to by many names, such as flow gauge, flow indicator, liquid meter, flow rate sensor, flow rate meter, etc. depending on the particular industry.
Electronic flow meters are industrial digital flow meters for fluid flow rate measurement. Electronic flowmeters types like Magnetic, Vortex, and Ultrasonic flow meters.
While magnetic, vortex, and ultrasonic–are neither exclusively nor exhaustively electronic in nature. They do represent a logical grouping of flow measurement technologies.
All electronic flow meters have no moving parts, are non-intrusive, and are made by electronics technology.
Magnetic flowmeters are the most directly electrical in nature, deriving their first principles of operation from Faraday’s law. Vortex meters depend on piezoelectric sensors to detect vortices shed from a stationary shedder bar. And today’s ultrasonic flowmeters owe their successful application to sophisticated digital signal processing.
Read more about: What is a Flow Meter? Types and how does it work?
Featured Electronic Flow Meters
Electronic flow meter working principle
Simply put, the working principle of Electronic Flow Meters is to convert the flow rate of the measured fluid into an electronic signal through the flow sensor component. And can carry out flow rate display and signal output. For example, display instantaneous flow rate, cumulative flow, etc.
As you can see. There are many types of Electronic Flow Meters. Therefore, their accurate measurement principles are different.
Magnetic flow meters use a magnetic field to generate and channel liquid flow through a pipe.
A voltage signal is created, when a conductive liquid flows through the flowmeter’s magnetic field.
The faster the flow of the fluid, the greater the voltage signal generated.
Electrode sensors located on the flow tube walls pick up the voltage signal, and send it to the electronic transmitter, which processes the signal to determine liquid flow.
Let see the video about:
How to Measure Flow with Magnets – (Magnetic Flow Meters)
Video source: https://youtu.be/TR0baWuB6v4
Faraday’s Law
The operation of a magnetic flow meter or mag meter is based upon Faraday’s Law, which states that the voltage is induced across any conductor. As it moves at right angles through a magnetic field, is proportional to the velocity of that conductor.
Faraday’s Formula
E =V x B x D
E = The voltage generated in a conductor
V = The velocity of the conductor
B = The magnetic field strength
D = The length of the conductor
To apply this principle to flow measurement with a magnetic flow meter, it is necessary first to state that the fluid being measured, must be electrically conductive for the Faraday principle to apply.
As applied to the design of magnetic flow meters, Faraday’s Law indicates that signal voltage (E), is dependent on the average liquid velocity (V) the magnetic field strength (B). And the length of the conductor (D) (which in this instance is the distance between the electrodes).
In the case of wafer-style magnetic flow meters, a magnetic field is established throughout the entire cross-section of the flow tube.
If this magnetic field is considered as the measuring element of the magnetic flow meter, it can be seen that the measuring element is exposed to the hydraulic conditions, throughout the entire cross-section of the flow meter.
With insertion-style flow meters, the magnetic field radiates outward from the inserted probe.
Extended reading: Industrial Magmeters
Advantages of using Electromagnetic Flow Meters.
- High precision and stability
- Self-check
- Two-way measurement
- No pressure loss
- No moving parts
- May be for sanitary purposes
- Large size available
- Dirty liquid and mixed fructose are ok
Disadvantages of using Magnetic Flow Meters
- Can not be used to measure gas, steam and liquids containing a lot of gas;
- Cannot be used to measure liquid media with very low conductivity. The electromagnetic flowmeter cannot measure petroleum products or organic solvents and other media;
- Cannot be used to measure high temperature media. At present, it is restricted by the lining material and electrical insulation material of the measuring tube of the electromagnetic flowmeter for general industry;
- The electromagnetic flowmeter is easily affected by external electromagnetic interference.
Extended Reading: Petroleum Flow Meter
A vortex flow meter is a flow measurement device best suited for flow measurements, where the introduction of moving parts presents problems.
They are available in industrial grade, brass, or all-plastic construction. Sensitivity to variations in the process conditions is low, and no moving parts have relatively low wear compared to other types of flow meters.
Vortex flowmeters operate under the vortex shedding principle, where oscillating vortexes occur when a fluid such as water flow past a bluff (as opposed to a streamlined) body.
The frequency that the vortexes are shed depends on the size and shape of the body. It is ideal for applications where low maintenance costs are important.
Industrial size vortex meters are custom built and require appropriate sizing for specific applications.
The Vortex Shedding flow meter detects the vortices, that are created by a process medium going past a bluff body.
The frequency of these vortices can be equated to flow velocity, which, in turn, is used to calculate the volumetric flow rate.
The integral temperature sensor is used in saturated steam service, to determine the operating conditions and specific volume of the steam being measured.
The steam table incorporated into the electronics then calculates the flow of energy of the stream flowing through the meter.
The optional pressure sensor can be used for similar calculations, for gasses and superheated steam. Intelligent Signal Processing (ISP) provides stable readings, free of external influences.
Ultrasonic flowmeters use sound waves to determine the velocity of a fluid flowing in a pipe.
At no flow conditions, the frequencies of an ultrasonic wave transmitted into a pipe, and its reflections from the fluid are the same.
Under flowing conditions, the frequency of the reflected wave is different, due to the Doppler effect.
When the fluid moves faster, the frequency shift increases linearly. The transmitter processes signals from the transmitted wave, and its reflections to determine the flow rate.
Generally, an ultrasonic flow meter is a device, that uses ultrasound to measure the velocity of liquid flow. That helps in determining the volume of liquid flow also.
The ultrasonic flow meters are made using ultrasonic transducers, which are clamped to the external surface of a pipe, to generate the ultrasonic pulses through the pipe.
When the liquid flows inside the pipe, it creates the time difference in the pulses, and these are examined to calculate the accurate flow velocity of the liquid.
There are many advantages of using the ULTRASONIC flow meters which include:
- The electronics in the ultrasonic flow meter includes ultrasonic flowmeter detector which compensates and adapts to the changes in the profile of the flow, type of the liquid and material of the pipe.
- A portable ultrasonic flow meter converter can be used as a direct method to determine the flow rates effectively when compared to the other flow systems.
- Ultrasonic flow meter converter is inexpensive to use and maintain when compared to the other mechanical flow meters as they are no moving parts in these flow meters.
- Their design is highly sophisticated and they do not obstruct the liquid flow, so they can be used for sanitary, corrosive and abrasive liquids.
These are the advantages of the ultrasonic flow meters and there are many disadvantages of the Ultrasonic flow meter which include:
- The main disadvantage of the ultrasonic flow meter is the cost. The cost of the flow meter is very high when compared to the other types of mechanical flow meters.
- The ultrasonic flow meters are sophisticated when compared to the mechanical flow meters, so it needs experts to repair and maintain the flow meters.
These are the advantages and disadvantages of ultrasonic flow meters.
Fuel flow meters, also known as turbine flow meters, are the main types of speed flow meters. A freely rotatable impeller is installed in the fluid-flowing pipe. When the fluid passes, its motion can make the impeller rotate. The larger the fluid flow rate, the larger the kinetic energy, and the higher the impeller speed.
The fluid flow can be determined by measuring the number of revolutions or the number of revolutions of the impeller.
Extended Reading: Fuel Flow Meters for Diesel-Marine fuel-Industrial oil
Perhaps you are not clear about the principle of Electronic Flow Meters. Don’t want to know more about it. Just want to find the applicable Electronic Flow Meters. Then you can start from your measuring medium.
Electronic flow meter for water
A Digital Water flow meter is a flow meter that can display the water flow rate, and have the output for the flow rate. Like 4-20mA output, HART, RS 485, and so on. Digital Water Flow Meter is also called Electronic Water Flow Meter. Digital Water Flow Meter is widely used in industrial water and household water measurement. Most of the Sino-Inst flow meters are digital water flow meters. Like the electromagnetic flowmeter, Portable ultrasonic flow meter, Turbine flow meter…..
Read more Digital Water Flow Meters
Electronic flow meter for air
Digital gas flow meters are flow meters used to monitor the gas flow rate or mass. Digital gas flow meters are designed to measure different types of gases. Like Air, N2, O2, CO2, and more.
Digital gas flow meters can measure the flow of a wide variety of gases. According to measurement principles, there can be positive displacement gas flow meters, velocity gas flow meters, and mass gas flow meters. How to choose the right Digital gas flow meters? We will discuss in detail next.
Read more Digital gas flow meters for Sale
Electronic flow meter for oil
Industrial oil flow meters measure the volume or mass of oil. Can realize the mutual conversion of volume and mass.
The main industrial oils are hydraulic oil. Gear Oil. Turbine oil. Compressor oil. Refrigeration oil. Transformer oil. Cylinder oil, heat treatment oil, heat transfer oil, etc. Of course, edible oil can also be produced in the industry. In addition, there are greases with lubricating oil as base oil and thickening agent.
Therefore, whether it is a company that uses, trades, or produces oil, it needs to accurately measure the oil flow.
There are many common oil flow meters, such as turbine flow meters, positive displacement flow meters, gear flow meters, mass flow meters, etc.
Then, we need to choose a suitable flow meter that meets the measurement and budget according to different working conditions.
Read more Industrial Oil Flow Meters
What are the different types of flow meters?
Flowmeter types: Generally speaking, we will classify flow meters according to their working principles.
Flow Metering Principals
- Differential Pressure Flowmeters
- Velocity Flowmeters
- Positive Displacement Flowmeters
- Mass Flowmeters
- For Open Channel Flowmeters – weirs, flumes, submerged orifices, current meters, acoustic flow meters and more
For different working principles, We offer different types of flow meters, like:
- Differential Pressure Flow Meters
- Orifice Plate
- Venturi Tube
- Flow Nozzles
- The Sonic Nozzle – Critical (Choked) Flow Nozzle
- Calorimetric Flowmeter
- Ultrasonic Doppler Flowmeter
- Positive Displacement Flowmeter
- Variable Area Flowmeter or Rotameter
- Velocity Flowmeters
- Pitot Tubes
- Electromagnetic Flowmeter
- Turbine Flowmeter
- Vortex Flow Meter
- Thermal Flowmeter
- Coriolis Flowmeter
- Mass Flowmeters
- Open Channel Flowmeters
Extended reading: Gas Rotameter Tips
How to choose your flowmeters?
Important factors when selecting flow metering devices are:
- Measured medium
- Accuracy
- Cost
- Flow rate range
- Pperating requirements
- Maintenance
- Lifetime
- Lead time
These factors are more or less related to each other. For example – the cost of flow meters increases with accuracy and lifetime quality. Read more about: What Is GPM In Flow Meter?
More about Electronic Flow Measurement Technology
- Flow Measurement Units-What Is GPM in Flow Meter?
- What Is a BTU Meter?
- Flow Rate and Pressure Relationship-How to Calculate?
- Water Flow Measurement for Pipes and Open Channels
- Industrial Helium Flow Meters
- 6″ Flow Meters List | 6 Inch- DN150 Connection
- What Is Vortex Flow Meter? and FAQs
- Guide to Pulse Flow Meters: Must Know Before Shopping!
- What Is Turbine Flow Meter? and FAQs
- What Is a Thermal Mass Flow Meter?
Sino-Inst offers over 50 Electronic flow meters for flow measurement. About 50% of these are differential pressure flow meters, 40% is the liquid flow sensor, and 20% are Ultrasonic Level Transmitter and mass flow meters.
A wide variety of Electronic flow meters options are available to you, such as free samples, paid samples. Sino-Inst is a globally recognized supplier and manufacturer of flow measurement instrumentation, located in China.
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Wu Peng, born in 1980, is a highly respected and accomplished male engineer with extensive experience in the field of automation. With over 20 years of industry experience, Wu has made significant contributions to both academia and engineering projects.
Throughout his career, Wu Peng has participated in numerous national and international engineering projects. Some of his most notable projects include the development of an intelligent control system for oil refineries, the design of a cutting-edge distributed control system for petrochemical plants, and the optimization of control algorithms for natural gas pipelines.