Flow Measurement Solutions

[bmyerspgh]

Good Morning.

Does anyone have any experience with flow measurement systems?  Right now we are using Transonic clamp-on flow probes and their associated meters and we are considering a change of pace.

We are operating a pulsatile system with saline at 37C, 3/4" and 5/8" ID tubing, and deal with flows from lets say -5 to 20 L/min.

The biggest issue that we are dealing with is the fact that each of our 36 flow probes would need its own flow meter to read and re-transmit its signal.  So instead of having that massive bank of meters, we have 2 that connect to 18 probes each through a multiplexer.  What would be much better would be to have 36 outputs that I could feed to a nice SCXI daq board.

The only other catch is that these devices need to be able to be calibrated against an NIST on a regular basis, hopefully without interrupting the test to much.

So I ask you for your input and advice.  We are pretty open minded to any solutions that you can offer.

thanks!

[#2]

We use various MFC and flow meters but not in a pulsed application.  You could look for 4-20mA sensors that would work for a pulsed application.  I'm using rota-meters which have a very slow output.  Have you tried using a pressure transducer instead of a flow meter???

[BME_genuis]

We do simulations of human respiration and have to control multiple gas flow paths using MFCs.

[reynolja]

We measure flow rate with the use use on an encoder.

[bmyerspgh]

Thanks for the insight everyone.

I am meeting with Kobold today regarding their Magneto-Inductive Flowmeters. Turns out another co-worker is working on a project involving flow, so we are gonna see what they have to offer and see if it meets out needs.

I might be running into some power and signal issues... 24VDV input and the output is in current.. so its one of those, here is the tool you need, but I forsee alot of additional hardware.  anyone know if there is an SCXI module for current in? or am I gonna be buying alot of extra hardware ya think?

I am new to this stuff, so thanks for any insight and assistance

[BME_genuis]

Where do you work bmyerspgh?