New ultrasonic sensors for gas meter measurement

Louise Davis

The latest range of ultrasonic sensors for gas flow measurement from Ceramtec is designed for domestic gas flow sensing and industrial metering applications.

Ceramtec has optimised its 400kHz (09300-001) ultrasonic flow sensors to increase the accuracy over an extended temperature range (-35ºC to 80ºC) in order to achieve the specifications of the European MID as well as the relevant US and Canadian standards. 

As with any kind of ultrasonic technology, a high degree of acoustic stability is needed for accurate measurement. This is a particular challenge in ultrasonic gas metering, due to the inherent turbidity and significant fluid property changes over temperature in the metered fluid. 

The firm has developed a range of 400kHz ultrasonic gas transducers to minimise measurement errors, by keeping a stable, maximum output across temperatures. “It’s a question of repeatability,” explained Oksana Jaroszak, Transducer Engineer at CeramTec. “As temperatures fluctuate, there can be variance in the stability of the measurement results caused by ultrasonic sensors. These variations typically present themselves as fluctuations in the electrical characteristics, acoustic properties and the zero flow offset between a pair of ultrasonic sensors. The aim is to minimise or eliminate these variations so that more accurate measurements can be taken. The sensors exhibit less than 1ns zero flow drift in tested gas metering environments.”