Flow meter keeps good bugs working

Torbar Flowmeters' Tribar fully integrated flow meter is proving popular in the water industry, particularly in sewage treatment plants.

Torbar Flowmeters' Tribar fully integrated flow meter is proving popular in the water industry, particularly in sewage treatment plants.

There are now many installations where Tribars are being used to measure mass airflow in activated sludge plants, the main sewage treatment element.

Here air is blown through the sewage liquor to activate the bugs that are beneficial to the treatment process and Mass Tribars in each plant monitor this airflow.

Local readout can be provided together with indication at a central control station by telemetry.

The Tribar is a fully integrated flow meter that can also be used for liquid and steam flow measurement.

It combines a rugged averaging pitot tube insertion flow meter having an integral direct mount three-valve manifold with an industry standard programmable differential pressure transmitter.

Alternatively, as the Mass Tribar, it is fitted with a temperature sensor and multivariable DP transmitter, which measures absolute pressure, temperature and differential pressure, and corrects the volumetric flow for temperature and pressure changes.

It thus provides a 4-20mA output directly linear to mass flow removing the need for a temperature transmitter and a mass flow computer.

In addition to water treatment the instrument can be used for liquid and gas flow measurements in many industries, from petrochemical to food processing, and because the flow sensor has no moving parts to wear it requires very little maintenance.

The flow meters provide cost and space savings and require just one or two hole installation in pipe diameters from 15mm to 10m, and in square or rectangular ducts.

Other claimed advantages include enhanced reliability because there is only a single sealing face between the flow meter and transmitter, simple two-wire connection, reduced piping, faster response and zero transmission lags.

(This was Engineeringtalk's Top Story on 28 November 2002).

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