The Role of Ultrasonic Flow Meters in BTU Measurement

How do you quickly and efficiently install an energy measurement system for a leading global pharmaceutical facility that consumes as much as 300 million BTU per day? With clamp-on ultrasonic energy meters, a major manufacturer in Philadelphia successfully installed a working thermal energy monitoring system in only two days - enabling fast, accurate, real-time results.

A major pharmaceutical company has a large facility in the greater Philadelphia area. This facility consumes as much as 300 million BTU's of thermal energy per day to cool their labs, equipment, offices, and other facilities. The chiller distribution network runs across several buildings over long distance and throughout underground tunnels. The pipe sizes at this facility range from a few inches up to 24 inches.

The chiller system is managed by a facility management company. In order for the facility management company to bill their client properly, it was necessary to install an energy metering system to accurately measure the energy consumption of each compound. In addition, due to the long pipe lines, it was crucial to know if leakage of water or energy occurred on a real-time basis.

Application Challenges
This application presented several critical challenges for traditional BTU meters like turbine, orifice or even electromagnetic BTU meters.

1. First, the end customer did not want to stop the flow and energy supply, a common problem when using traditional meters.
2. The water was not clean due to years of operation - hindering the moving parts that are often found in mechanical meters.
3. The application also used very large 24" pipes. An insertion flowmeter would not be accurate due to a limitation in the sampling area; i.e., the energy is not uniform along the entire pipe cross-section. Energy leakage was another issue to consider due to the large amount of thermal energy transported throughout the network - resulting in higher costs due to poor or faulty insulation
4. Last, an inline type flowmeter was simply too costly to consider.

Solution
By utilizing the latest design in ultrasonic thermal energy meters, the customer was able to enjoy non-intrusive and robust flow measurement for their BTU application. The transducers can easily be clamped onto any pipe size without cutting the pipe or shutting down the flow - nor offer any moving parts to wear and tear, thus, saving in maintenance costs. The cost of these meters do not increase with pipe size, as the same transducers can be used for both small and large pipes.

Ultrasonic thermal energy meters utilize cutting-edge transit-time technology and patented digital signal processing algorithm, providing flow and energy measurement with excellent precision. This allows it to detect minimal flow and energy consumption which is critical for locating leakage in a complicated pipeline network.

Advantages

1. Non-intrusive installation thereby significantly saving money and time, in particular for large size pipes
2. No moving parts, thus, almost no maintenance, thereby saving maintenance costs
3. Industrial grade temperature sensors and ultrasonic sensors for improved robustness
4. Paired sensors and ultrasonic transducers for improved accuracy
5. Suitable for pure liquids and liquids with some particles.
6. Suitable for all commonly used pipes
7. Bi-directional flow measurement
8. Seamless integration of temperature and flow so to deliver a complete energy metering solution
9. Accurate flow and BTU measurement improves chiller plant control
10. Real-time data and balancing information to improve system efficiency
11. Continuous monitoring of flow, temperature, and energy transportation guarantees system performance along with providing alarm for potential risk or energy leakage

This post is shared by spiremt.com, which is a leading supplier of ultrasonic flow meters, ultrasonic heat meters, water flow meters and more.