Brooks Instrument Blog

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…

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.

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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…

Last week a co-worker of mine was cleaning out some old marketing demos and found the beauty pictured below. This is an old Full-View variable area flow meter. We took guesses amongst ourselves as to what year this was manufactured. The product manager, Jim Dillon, had to find out. So he went and pulled technical microfilm … that’s right, I said microfilm! It took a a few days because the machine to read the microfilm needed a new fuse. This was turning into quite the project!!! Well … we found out the year. You can see the order form pictured below. I blocked out any indication of what year this was produced. Can you guess?

Take a guess before the year is through (deadline is 12/31/11) and the first ten (10) responders that guess the correct year this product was produced will win a 4GB memory stick shaped like our new GF40/80 thermal mass flow meter/mass flow controller.

Yesterday, during the Chem Show in New York City, our very own Steve Kannengieszer was interviewed by Chemical Processing magazine‘s Senior Digital Editor, Traci Purdum. We’re still waiting for the video but I thought I would share some of the Q&A’s that were covered. If you are at the Chem Show, stop by and see us at booth 303! Read more…