Bitumen is always quite a challenge to process. It is viscousabrasivehighly flammableand must be maintained at constant high temperatures.
During the production of corrugated asphalt roofing panels at Tallant Industries in VirginiaUSAbitumen must be moved from a heated vessel to a smelter where it is the heated to 190°C shortly before it is used for impregnation. Vessels and smelter are heated by two inch pipes flowing heat transfer oil at 282°C.
The oil flow rate is critical for maintaining the bitumen at the correct process temperature.
And it is that Flexim’s WaveInjector makes non-intrusive ultrasonic flow measurement at high temperatures possible.
This special mounting fixture permit standard temperature rated transducers to be used at temperatures as high as 750°C without reliability or performance degradation.
The transducers send the ultrasonic signal into the pipe via optimised coupling fins. The heat radiating area of these fins is several hundred times greater than their heat inducting surfaces.
Thissays the companyleads to a significant temperature gradient between the pipe wall and the transducers coupling surface.
Using WaveInjector to measure the flow in the heat transfer oil circuitTallant could detect a problem caused by a build-up of coke from the bitumen on the heat transfer coils. Delays in the production could thus be avoided.
Flexim Flexible Industriemesstechnik GmbH is based in BerlinGermany. www.flexim.de
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