A Gas Flowmeter – Vital For A Profitable And Efficient Business

The applications of a gas flowmeter are varied. They are used in many industries from chemical development to food production. They are mainly used in large plants or factories where these processes are done on a large scale. The main aim of such flowmeters is to maintain the safety of the plant by ensuring that machinery or processes operate within certain tolerances. A gas flowmeter can also be used to monitor the efficiency of certain machinery or processes. In this way a flowmeter is a safeguard for many businesses and is a vital part of the process control monitoring of such companies.

A dramatic example of gas flowmeters at work may be in nuclear power plants. Without the precise measurements that the meters of many components of the plant can provide, accidents could occur with devastating consequences.

Although gas flowmeters have roughly the same aim, there are many different designs that have their advantages and disadvantages. Which meter is selected for the plant or machine really depends on what is being measured.

Variable area meters may be described as the simplest design. They feature a float that is displaced when a gas passes through the meter tube. This displacement correlates to a particular flowrate depending on the type of gas in question. However, changes in temperature and pressure will affect the accuracy of the variable area flow meter. In general, this type of meter is the cheapest but is less flexible or accurate.

Mass flow meters also measure the flow rate of a gas but correlate the mass rather than the volume. In this respect they are anot as susceptible to changes in pressure and temperature in the pipe. They can give more accurate reading and have more tolerance but are more expensive.

Turbine flowmeters are a complex piece of machinery that is probably the most accurate at measuring the flow rate but is also expensive. The turbine is made to rotate by the movement of the gas through the turbine. This rotational speed is directly proportional to the gas flow and a correlation can be made. A possible disadvantage of this type of flowmeter over the some of the others is that it has moving parts that may be prone to wear out.

Differential pressure flowmeters measure the pressure differential between the inlet and outlet of a pipe. This differential pressure change corresponds to the flowrate of the gas. These types of flowmeters are extremely flexible because changes in pressure and temperature can be factored into the calculation of the flowrate, provided there are sensors to measure these dimensions.

Among the better gas flowmeters is the Series PV9000 Electronic Flowmeter that uses differential pressure management as well as a sensing technology known as laminar flow element sensing that allows for precise measurements of the flow rate of gases that are not hazardous as well as which are inert, and the accuracy achieved is about plus minus two percent. Another innovation in the gas flowmeter is the wireless flowmeter that is low cost as well as is a small-line mass flow option that is ideally suited for processes that use natural gas flows as well as methane and even certain fuel gases, and more.

Another kind of flowmeter that is widely used and which is third only to the differential pressure and positive displacement flowmeters is the magnetic flowmeter which is commonly referred to as mag meter. In such a meter, a magnetic field gets applied to a tube (metering) and it also requires having a conducting fluid such as water that contains ions and a pipe (electrical insulating) surface to be effective.