Abstract
Accurate water consumption measurement of customers is a crucial component of water utility sustainability. During the last decade, sophisticated measuring technologies without moving components, known as solid-state water meters or static meters, have emerged. Solid-state water meters promise an improved accuracy with more processing and transmission capabilities in comparison with traditional mechanical meters. A compromise needs to be reached between energy consumption and battery life as all these new features are extremely demanding on electric energy. The usual approach adopted by the manufacturer is to reduce the frequency with which static meters take measurements of the circulating flow. This reduction in signal sampling frequency can have a significant effect on the accuracy of the instruments when measuring water consumption events of 30 s or less, these events being common in residential customers. The research presented analyses of the metrological performance of 28 commercially available solid-state water meters from six different manufacturers in the presence of intermittent flows of various durations. The results show that the magnitude and dispersion of the error under intermittent flows is significantly larger in comparison to steady state flow conditions. The ultrasonic meters examined were more influenced by the intermittency than the electromagnetic meters.
Highlights
Solid-state water meters or static meters are measuring instruments which do not use a mechanical measuring principle to quantify the amount of water consumed
The purpose of the experiment was to explore the stability of measuring errors of small diameter solid-state water meters under the presence of unsteady and varying flows. Performance under these working conditions is critical for water utilities as varying consumption flow rates are typical of domestic customers and currently are not considered in any test programme defined in international standards related to water meters
The results obtained from the tests underwent a preliminary validation process to identify outliers and abnormal data points. This validation process includes the identification of transcription errors of the meter readings by means of pictures taken at the beginning and end of each test and the consistency of the data. This consistency checks verified the volume recorded by the different reference meters or probes and the relationship between the duration and flow rate of the test and the volume used for reference
Summary
Solid-state water meters or static meters are measuring instruments which do not use a mechanical measuring principle to quantify the amount of water consumed. Flow rate and volume calculations use static sensors as the physical principles of measurements. It is possible to find in the market mechanical meters with an electronic register that can conduct the same type of analysis as a static smart meter with the only difference that the measuring principle is mechanical. Examples of these are velocity-single-jet, multi-jet, and Woltmann meters, or positive displacement meters—oscillating piston and nutating disc
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