MASS-VIEW the digital variable area / purge meter
What is a Variable Area flow meter or purge meter?
Traditional ball meter Variable area meters are also called purge meters. Over the years, different types of variable area flow meters have been developed, usually in response to some specific need. Nowadays a purge meter usually consists of a tapered tube, typically made of glass or plastic. Inside this tapered tube there is the ‘float’ which is made either of anodized aluminum or a ceramic.
The ‘float’ is actually a shaped weight that is pushed up by the drag force of the flow and pulled down by gravity.
The drag force for a given fluid and float cross section is a function of flow speed squared only.
Traditional ball meter Variable area meters are also called purge meters. Over the years, different types of variable area flow meters have been developed, usually in response to some specific need. Nowadays a purge meter usually consists of a tapered tube, typically made of glass or plastic. Inside this tapered tube there is the ‘float’ which is made either of anodized aluminum or a ceramic.
The ‘float’ is actually a shaped weight that is pushed up by the drag force of the flow and pulled down by gravity.
The drag force for a given fluid and float cross section is a function of flow speed squared only.
How does a Variable area meter/purge meter work?
While the meters are still relatively simplistic in design, relatively low cost, low maintenance and ease of installation they are widely used in many kinds of applications. Despite these facts, the traditional VA meter has a number of drawbacks.
For instance, graduations on a given purge meter will only be accurate for a given substance at a given temperature and pressure. Either way, due to the direct flow indication, the resolution is relatively poor anyway.
Especially when they are built into a machine, reading might be hard. Moreover, the float must be read through the flowing medium, so you can imagine that some fluids may obscure the reading.
MASS-VIEW the digital meter
As for the current century, Bronkhorst developed the MASS-VIEW flow meter series which is the digital high-tech alternative to these traditional variable area meters.
Thanks to today’s digital possibilities, many other advantages arises for many industrial processes and chemical plants.
- The MASS-VIEW digital flow meter series operate on the principle of direct thermal mass flow measurement (no by-pass); rather than measuring the volume flow it measures the actual mass flow, without the need of temperature and pressure correction.
- The digital OLED display provides you an easy direct or relative reading of the actual flow. Herewith parallax errors are excluded.
- With this digital flow meter, you can obtain the accumulated flow easily. This availability of data gives insight in costs, leading to data driven decision making power.
- A digital flow meter can be mounted in any position. The variable area meter needs to be mounted in a vertical position.
- The flow path is made of sustainable aluminum rather than plastic or glass which is fragile.
- The digital instruments are standard equipped with 0-5V, RS-232 and Modbus-RTU output signals. The VA meters usually do not have any output signal available at all.
- The digital flow meter has 2 built-in relays which indicate an alarm situation. Herewith, external devices can be controlled.
- A MASS-VIEW flow meter has multiple pre-installed gases on board as opposed to traditional VA meters, which are produced for one particular fluid only.
- Digital instruments have a range ability of 1:100 and 10 pre-installed ranges, as opposed to VA meters usually have a range ability of 1:10 and one single full scale range only.
> Purchase the MASS-VIEW now online!
- Direct thermal mass flow measurement
- High accuracy
- 10 pre-installed gases
- Bright, graphical OLED display
- Digital or analog output; alarm and counter functions
- High precision needle valve