Flow Meter & Thickness Tester - Recommendations

My understanding of an ultrasonic flowmeter for pipes is that it would measure the flow rate of the liquid in the pipe. Is that what you want? What about "thickness tester"? Do you want it to measure pipe wall thickness? Is the same unit meant to do that?

Cheers,

Frank

Frankston,

Yes, on the flow meter. But I don't necessarily expect the flowmeter to measure the wall thickness as well.

Although for most of the meters I have seen, they need to know the thickness of the pipe wall to work accurately, which is why I asked about both in the same post.

Regards,
Sapper

Hi

Have a look at GE Panametrics, I do not know what costs you are looking at but having used a few different ones I would now always go back to them as non of the others seem to offer the same reliablity.

As I already have two (2) of the Panametrics (PT878), I would be inclined to agree.

But the boss wants a "cheaper" variety requiring less to set up.

After pointing out the error of his ways, I suspect next week I will be looking at std water meters with a pulse counter going to a logger for data collection and reporting.

Much cheaper and more reliable.

Regards,
Sapper

Try a search on 'Balteau Sonatest' which I worked for several years ago in Milton Keynes. Sounds like your application is particulalry suited although they were really into weld defect location. Thickness was a by product.

I have been using (and specking) this flowmeter

http://www.flexim.com/ultrasonicflowmeter/index.php

with great success on PVC pipes to measure Sodium Hypochlorite flow from a metering pump. It is the only meter I was able to find which is able to read even at very low linear velocities, and with a feature to compensate for the pulsating nature of the flow.

it comes with magnetic clamps for metallic pipes or regular clamps for plastic. Cost is about 6-7 k.

good luck

Hey, I know it has been a while since you posted this, but what did you decide? Can you highlight a few points of what you learned about these -problems/limitations with models, etc? Even the good/bad of the transit-time vs. the doppler type models? I am looking to get an Ultrasonic meter for use on unfiltered river water in pipes as large as 3m. But, I only have access to 1 side of the pipe and a bit over 1m length of it, so I am not sure whether the transit-time can be used -and whether the water is clean enough to work. Anyway, some input could help, Thanks

Here are some I'm looking at:

http://www.flexim.com/ultrasonicflowmeter/ultrasonicflowmeter_news_061.php

http://www.fujitecom.com/products/wfpm.html

http://www.sierrainstruments.com/products/210Prod.html

Siemens (formerly Controlatron) is a major player in transit time ultrasonics. Their universal transducers will shoot a variety of materials, all those you listed. But Siemens is a performance oriented instrument, not low end.

The stated access limitation - 1m - is quite severe for very large diameter pipes.

The photo below shows an installation for 10 ft (3m) diameter cooling water pipe.

Notice the distance between the transducers, the thin rectangular devices, mounted vertically. I'd estimate that the transducers are about 8 ft (<3m) apart, far beyond your 1m limitation.

The smaller the pipe diameter, the shorter the distance between the transducers. Different manufacturers use different transducers and different signal processing algorithms, but the basic physics of bouncing energy off the opposite pipe side remain.

Good luck researching a suitable instrument.