Ultrasonic gas flow meter with corrections for large dynamic metering range

Extreme accuracy is required in sing-around type gas flow meters in the sing-around period measurement. Thus the detection of the ultrasound is critical. Accurate detection of an ultrasound pulse transmitted through gas is not straightforward. Normally a zero crossing technique is applied, where a level trigger determines when to enable the zero crossing triggering. In a flowing gas, the ultrasound amplitude is modulated due to turbulence, humidity and changes in dynamic gas pressure. This introduces uncertainty as to the cycle in which the ultrasound pulse is detected. This in turn results in large errors in sing-around type gas flow meters. This paper discusses a new correction algorithm which will eliminate such trigger errors. To accomplish the verification of the new correction algorithm, a microprocessor-based sing-around gas flow meter, using 500 kHz ultrasound has been designed. The correction algorithm significantly increases the repeatability of this meter. Repeatability better than 0.5% over a dynamic meter range of 1 to 35 has been measured. Limitations of the sing-around method imposed by the new correction algorithm have been derived theoretically.