Water leakages in pipes are a common household problem faced globally and caused by numerous reasons – either by high water pressure, corrosion, a sudden change in temperature, and many more. Furthermore, this matter is most of the time not remedied immediately because these are only discovered through obvious signals – when holes have grown large, or the water level is high. To address this concern, families have been availing technology that can easily detect and locate probable leakages as small as a drop within their houses.
However, this type of ultrasonic innovation we are telling you is composed of applications that can amplify past water meters. Likewise, it can measure the degree of the gas stream and distinguish the combination of which gases are passing through the pipe channels. This type of advantage can enable assistance to medical experts in controlling oxygen conveyance in surgical gear.
Before anything else, we’ll be giving you an idea of what is a flow meter to help you understand better our products. Flowmeters, also called flow gauges, flow indicators, liquid meters, and so on – are instruments whose function is to measure the amount of water flow. These are also used to measure water flows in large, open bodies of water such as lakes and rivers. These devices aren’t only limited to liquid, they also measure gas flows. The most significant advantage that flow meters have is their almost exact outcomes from their fluid measurements, making them very reliable. Recently, flow meters utilized as leakage detectors due to their precise flow measurements, and with the addition of ultrasonic flow meters, the prevention of leakages can easily be avoided.
Read below to know more about the ultrasonic flow meter in general.
Why ultrasonic waves?
Ultrasonic waves, of course, are not newly-discovered gems in the field of technology as it has been utilized for many other purposes. Common usage for this type of waves in nature are bats in which they are utilizing these for echolocation in order to dodge deterrents and capture creepy crawlies effortlessly at nighttime. Moreover, these waves are also applied in a wide range of aspects: fabric sensitivity, car accident prevention, and imaging for mechanical and restorative features.
Presently, such waves can be applied in water meters and other stream meters. Before, flow meters depended on electromechanical apparatus with a rotating shaft or an adapter that employs an attractive component to produce signals. Now, electromechanical apparatus in flow meters are quickly transitioning to electronic types similar to indoor regulators, engines, and parts of other regular gadgets.
In addition, the speed of acoustic waves within the liquid is being measured by a combination of immersive ultrasonic transducers or signal receivers. This determines the consistency, rate of water flow, and course of the liquid streaming through the pipe. Note that ultrasonic waves move at changing speeds and would depend highly on the firmness of the instrument they’re traveling through.
Correspondingly, the quality of the transducer, accuracy analog circuitry, and signal perception approaches will distinguish the estimation of the water flow measurement. Acoustic or ultrasonic transducers are piezoelectric materials which means that these devices are utilizing crystals for the transformation of mechanical energy to electrical energy, or vice versa. These entail changes over electric signals to mechanical vibrations at a moderately tall recurrence of hundreds of kilohertz. Regularly, a match of ultrasonic transducers that is within the run of 1-2 MHz must be well-matched and calibrated in order to be able to generate a precise flow measurement. These constitute a critical portion of the water meter’s fetches and the structure of the sensor must work at an exceptionally low control to guarantee a 15-20 year battery longevity.
MSP430FR6043 is an exceptional water metering chip as it incorporates a special analog feature and innovation, which altogether produces a more accurate water flow measurement and is cost-efficient. Our water metering engineering is a cut among the rest through its high-performance analog plan, progressed design, and programmed procedure to relieve the need for costly ultrasonic signal receivers. In the same manner, the special analog feature and innovation are the compensation for the transducer jumble which makes it an additional advantage.
Conserving water through a technology
To estimate the certain flow rate, an ordinary ultrasonic water meter relays an ultrasonic wave and measures the contrasting delay at the receiver. The time-to-digital-converter circuits deal with those delay estimations and are in-charge of managing the zero crossings of the obtained waveform. However, the issue with the ordinary approach is that its sensitivity doesn’t easily distinguish stream levels with exact estimation.
With our superior engineering, it is able to send a keen analog front end that composes an excellent analog-to-digital converter to make progress on the quality of our signal-to-noise and overcome the mistakes formed on the calibrations. Here are some pros to our methods:
- It accomplishes several higher precisions by lessening obstructions and progressing signal-to-noise ratio
- Its design enables to measure a larger extent of water flow coming from fire hoses to smaller leaks
- By employing a lower voltage driver, it’s essentially cost-efficient than other types of flow meters. The normal current for one estimation per second is less than 3 microamp and this is equivalent to a battery life of more than 15 years.
- It can also distinguish interference, bubbles and other inconsistencies detected on the water flow, which is critical for flow examination and overhauling the pipelines.
- Our avant-garde innovation is efficient in handling wide variations of amplitudes within the two directions of flow, which may possibly happen by either water or gas at higher stream rates.
Nowadays, a staggering number of other TI innovations are already regarded as basic for a high-performance flow meter. A short-power microcontroller with the embedded ultrasonic analog front end, a high-accuracy clock reference, a stagnant current control administration, and ultra-accurate impedance coordinating of transmitting drivers and signal receivers are just examples of extra distinctive advances in these flow meters. Together, these innovations can help fully develop the progress of our efforts in conserving one of our basic needs for survival.