Air Flow Measurement

Modern, efficiently designed buildings don’t have too much space, they have just enough.  Engineers are often challenged by architectural design to find enough free space to install and maintain all of the required mechanical equipment.  Even tougher when you consider the additional space required for accessibility, duct, piping, wiring, on and on.

We in the instrumentation world are looking for nice, long, straight runs of duct and piping so we can achieve accurate and reliable flow measurements.

Instrumentation requires straight runs for two simple reasons.

  1. Flow meters must be installed to factory installation requirements to ensure the stated accuracy that is published in the equipment cut sheets.
  2. Flow meters work best when installed into fully developed, turbulent flow profile. The more straight run, the better.

So, what do we do when we require accuracy and or repeatability, but are unable to meet the manufacturers installation guidelines?

Read more here.