Design, simulation and practical experimentation of miniaturized turbine flow sensor for flow meter assessment

Salami Ifedapo Abdullahi,Noreha Abd Malik,Mohamed Hadi Habaebi

doi:10.11591/eei.v8i3.1501

Abstract

Flow sensors are very essential in many aspects of our daily lives. Many of the industrial processes need a very consistent flow sensor to monitor and check for irregularities in their system. Therefore, flow sensor is an important tool for advanced operation in industrial environment. In this paper, the design and development of a 3D fabricated flow sensor was carried out using SolidWork 3D CAD. SolidWork Flow Simulation was used to model the effect the turbine flow sensor would have on a constant flowing water while MATLAB Simulink flow graph was created to visualize the effect of turbine flow sensor response with voltage input. Afterwards, the design was 3D printed using UP Plus 2 3D printer. The experimentation involved selection of sensors, coding to control the turbine flow sensor and automatic data logging and storage. During the design phase, the sensors and actuators were assembled using locally sourced material. Subsequently, under controlled laboratory environment, the turbine flow sensor was tested using a DC motor which was programmed to control the revolution per minute(rpm) of the turbine flow sensor. The rpm and velocity of the turbine flow meter was measured and stored in a database via Microsoft Excel using Cool Term Software. A total number of 517 readings were analysed to evaluate the performance of the turbine flow sensor. The result shows that the turbine flow meter is responsive to the motor input voltage and yielded accurate measurement of rpm and velocity of turbine flow meter.

Highlights

This article is an extension of the work presented during the International Conference on Computer and Communication Engineering (ICCCE)’18 Conference in September2018
Flow sensors have to be compact and easy to integrate with other sensors which is the reason miniaturized flow sensors designs have been carried out in this study. This aim of this paper is to develop a system whereby turbine flow sensor can be integrated in for continuous flow rate measurement
Flow trajectories results of water in the flow simulation is discussed as well as the response of the turbine flow sensor during the simulation period

Summary

Introduction

This article is an extension of the work presented during the ICCCE’18 Conference in September2018. This article provides more comprehensive details on the previous work as the study developed further by accessing the performance of the 3D printed flow sensor. The Sumerian cities which their existence dated back to 5000 B.C measured water flow by utilizing buckets and a timer [1]. The method adopted by the Sumerians was to measure the time taken for flowing water to fill a known capacity of a bucket is taken while manual computation of flow rate is approximated and recorded [1]. Hoffman recorded the first use of turbine flow sensor in Hamburg, Germany by publishing a brochure describing Reinhard Woltman invention of a current meter for measuring water and air flow as shown in Figure 1 [2]. The advancement of technology in the 21st century has introduced new methods of flow sensor such as optical flow meter, thermal and mechanical flow sensors

Methods

Results

Conclusion