Thermal Flow Sensor for Non‐Invasive Measurements in HVAC Systems

Proceedings

Glatzl, Thomas¹  Cerimovic, Samir²  Treytl, Albert³  Beigelbeck, Roman⁴ 

[1] Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.;Department for Integrated Sensor Systems, Danube University Krems, A‐2700 Wiener Neustadt, Austria;Institute of Sensor and Actuator Systems, Vienna University of Technology, A‐1040 Vienna, Austria;Presented at the Eurosensors 2018 Conference, Graz, Austria, 9–12 September 2018

关键词: thermal flow sensor;    non‐invasive flow rate measurement;    HVAC systems;   

DOI  :  10.3390/proceedings2130827

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

We present a feasibility study on non‐invasive flow rate measurements in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems utilizing thermal transduction instead of commonly used ultrasonic techniques. The investigated thermal flow transduction comprises two temperature sensors and a heater, all mounted non‐invasively on the outer pipe surface and, therefore, not disturbing the fluid flow inside. One temperature sensor measures the heater temperature, whereas the other one, mounted upstream of the heater, follows the fluid temperature for reference. The temperature difference (i.e., the heater excess temperature) depends on the fluid velocity and can be used to derive the mean volume flow inside the pipe. In order to visualize and study the temperature field, a finite element method (FEM) model of the system was implemented. Measurements conducted with the sensor prototype confirm the feasibility of this approach.

【 授权许可】

CC BY