Yesterday I covered flow rate and reference conditions and talked about how important (or not) these are to specifying a variable area (VA) flow meter. Today, I’ll finish up my tips by reviewing fluid density and viscosity as well as accuracy.
Fluid: Density and viscosity
We always have questions about the fluid such as gas or liquid. What are the density and viscosity? Is it corrosive or opaque? If it a know fluid such as air, nitrogen, water, etc. The questions get much easier because the world has defined how these known fluids behave so we can easily determine density and viscosity for common fluids such as air, water, nitrogen, etc. Which leads to the questions as to why do we need to know fluid density and viscosity? Fluid density and viscosity are important because these two values allow us to select the right flow meter (meter size). We call this sizing. What is behind sizing? Briefly, performance data has been collected on all of the different meters we offer. We query the performance data and look for flow meters that fit the supplied process conditions (density and viscosity). Usually there are many flow meters that fit your conditions. From there it becomes a matter of preference, available options, price or accuracy. This leads me to my last topic on VA meters, which is accuracy. Read more…
In yesterday’s blog post, I took you through why we need to know about your normal and maximum operating temperatures and pressures in your application to specify the right variable area (VA) flow meter for your process. Today, we’ll dive into flow rates and reference conditions.
3. Flow rate – minimum, maximum, normal
Of course flow rate is an obvious requirement but it is more complicated than it appears. The goal is to specify a VA meter where the normal operating flow is in the 60% to 80% of the meter’s range. Why you ask because a variable area meter is more accurate in the upper part of its range. I will talk more about accuracy in my next blog post. Of course a flow meter needs to be chosen that handles the minimum and maximum flows too. The other component of flow rate is the units. Read more…
Categories: Variable Area/Purge Meters Tags: flow meter, flow meters, va flow meter, va flow meters, va meter, va meters, variable area, variable area flow meter, variable area flow meters, variable area meter, variable area meters
Variable area (VA) flow meters will respond like the canary in the mine when the air quality changes. If process conditions change there usually is an impact on flow rate. For example if back pressure changes on gas flows the float/flow will change just as changes in liquid viscosity will have a similar impact to the float/flow.
VA meters reacting to changes in process conditions can be a good or bad thing based on a user’s viewpoint, which brings us back to the real question. So why do we need so much information to specify the proper VA meter? I will go through the questions and explain why it is necessary. The information needed is: Read more…
After posting the blog about Brooks’ history with NASA this morning, I realized that this blog post about our Quantim’s in space must have been mistakenly deleted at some point, so here it is! Enjoy!
Delivering saline solution to a clinic for medical needs … sounds simple enough, right? Not when that clinic is on the International Space Station, the moon or even Mars. Transporting medical fluids that are manufactured on Earth into space is expensive and logistically challenging. NASA Johnson Space Center knew there had to be a way to manufacture medical fluids in space to alleviate the transportation problems and to make spacecraft more self sufficient, so they called on the microgravity science expertise and spaceflight hardware development know-how of Cleveland, OH based NASA Glenn Research Center and ZIN Technologies, Inc.
Read more…
Categories: Coriolis and Thermal Mass Flow Tags: Coriolis mass flow, Coriolis mass flow controller, flow meters, International Space Station, mass flow, mass flow controller, mass flow meter, mass flow meters, NASA, NASA Johnson Space Center, Quantim, rotameters, Sho-Rate, thermal mass flow meter, thermal mass flow meters, variable area, variable area flow meters
While we were cleaning out our offices a few weeks ago a co-worker of mine handed me a great Norman Rockwell oil painting that we used to have hanging in one of our hallways. It was taken down when we were updating our facility. He wasn’t sure what to do with it. The reason we used to have it hanging up in the walls at Brooks (and the reason I’m going to find it another nice home on our walls) is because in the background of the picture you can see some Brooks Sho-Rate variable area flow meters between the two men on the left. Brooks provided Sho-Rate flow meters to NASA for some of the first missions into space. Read more…
Categories: Brooks News, Coriolis and Thermal Mass Flow, Variable Area/Purge Meters Tags: Coriolis, Coriolis mass flow controllers, flow meter, flow meters, gas mixing system, hatfield, International Space Station, mass flow controller, mass flow controllers, NASA, NASA research, Norman Rockwell, Norman Rockwell oil painting, Quantim, Sho-Rate, sla, thermal mass flow, thermal mass flow meter, thermal mass flow meters, variable area, variable area flow meter, variable area flow meters
We always like to take the opportunity to share our customer success stories. Here’s one from the land Down Under where Brooks worked with Measurement Plus Pty. Ltd. to install a new gas mixing system at a research institute in Melbourne.
Researchers at the institute were using N2, CO, CO2 and Ar to stabilize a reaction chamber. However, at some point during the process, they wanted the ability to flow in a mixture of these gases. At the time, the institute was using older Brooks thermal mass flow meters inside a self-designed panel. The panel and its components were about 30 years old, rusted and looked like a bird’s nest. Read more…
Categories: Coriolis and Thermal Mass Flow Tags: 0254, flow meter, flow meters, gas mixing, gas mixing system, mass flow controller, mass flow controllers, mass flow meter, mass flow meters, pressure regulator, thermal mass flow meter, thermal mass flow meters
This has been a product that we have been working on and perfecting on over the past several months and I’m extremely excited to finally formally launch the new GF40 and GF80 thermal mass flow controller and flow meter! These mass flow controllers provide outstanding performance, reliability and flexibility in many gas flow measurement and control applications. One of the best features of this new mass flow controller is the patented 4th generation MultiFlo gas and range configurability. MultiFlo programming is simple and fast – a new gas and range can be programmed under 60 seconds plus the device can be programmed without removing it from service or disconnecting the device from any process or tool control system.
The GF40/GF80 Series mass flow controllers features fast sub one second settling times and corrosion-resistant Hastalloy sensor tube for long-term stability. The superior valve technology provides minimum leak-by, maximum turndown and fast response which reduces overall gas panel cost and increases throughput. Additionally, the measurement accuracy of every device is verified using traceable primary calibration standards.
Want to learn more? Download the datasheet or contact your local sales engineer.
Brooks’
We continue to add more products to our e-commerce website, www.BrooksInstrument.com/Shop. We just added the model 8601 pressure regulator this week. There six different variations of the model 8601 available now in addition to the glass tube variable area flow meters, plastic tube variable area flow meters, and pressure gauges. Read more…
