Terminology Question

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Thread Starter

Matthew da Silva

What do you call a meter for measuring the flow of air. In the world of measurement of liquids you've got mechanical meters with a rotary device for measuring flow. If the liquid were air, what would it be called? Literal translation is 'ventilation meter' but that's obviously not correct. Help!

Matthew Yamatake Tokyo
 
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Miller, Chuck (IndSys, GEFanuc, NA)

A "Gas Turbine Meter" can be sized to measure specific range of flow through a tube or pipe. Depending on the repeatability and resolution you require, Vortex type flow measurement might also meet your application needs.
 
Mathieu,
"Meter" means "Measuring device".
Your "air Flow Meter" falls in that large category
of gas and liquid flow meter.
"Anemometer " is wrong. It measures the speed of wind. "Meter" implies the measurement for
quantity (they all revert to be "MassFlowMeter").
Flow, flow, flow: what's flow ? something being
contained?(otherwise there is no flow). Then
"flow = MassFlow. Friendly <[email protected]>.
 
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Curt Wuollet

Hi Olivier

Unless you have a positive displacement device, they all boil down to the velocity of air over a given area. Even the thermistor "mass flow" devices are responding to airspeed. Most also assume laminar flow which is a pretty big assumption for air. For that matter, if you can devise a way of transferring mass without a directly corresponding velocity, that would be interesting. The platinum wire types used in engine controls do a better job of averaging non-laminar flow and are self compensating for temperature as well. By the time you account for all the mass components of "normal" air to get reasonable accuracy, the anemometer sounds pretty good. A windspeed indicator is only one class.

Regards

Curt Wuollet
 
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