Eastern Instruments - Solids Mass Flow and Air Flow Measurement Equipment

There are a lot of solids flow meters on the market these days.  But not all of these devices are the same, even though they may look the same.  Many companies promote their devices as one thing, but underneath the hood they are really something else.  So, how does a plant manager, process engineer, or maintenance manager tell the difference to pick the device they need to get the results they need?  This blog will try to help clarify the difference between two of the most popular solids flow meters, the impact meter or impact flow meter and the centripetal force meter. HOW THEY WORK The Impact Flow Meter: The impact flow meter goes by many different names like impact meter, impact scale, impact weigher or impact flow meter, but they are all basically the same.  The measurement technique for an impact meter is fairly simple, product flow is dropped down a chute and directed to impact plate at a specific angle and flow rate. The impact creates an imp...

There are many different ways to move solid materials through a process, ranging from belt conveyors, vibratory conveyors, and pneumatic systems, to bucket conveyors/elevators and screw conveyors.  Many of these devices are great for moving the product, but if you need to measure the mass flow rate or control the flow rate, pulsations created by some of these devices can cause major problems. Devices like bucket conveyors/elevators, rotary valves, and screw conveyors have pockets, flights, or buckets that help to collect the product and move it through the device.  These create pulses or slugs of flow, some of which can be very large and there can be seconds or even moments where there is no flow at all between slugs. Pulsating Flow through a CentriFlow Meter Most mass flow meters require that pulsations be mechanically smoothed if at all possible, because they cannot deal with the pulsations when measuring the flow and computing the totalization.  This is typ...

When measuring the flow rate and totalization of a bulk solid materials with a flow meter, there are a lot of options.  However, when the particles of the bulk solid are large, irregular shaped, and vary greatly in bulk density, the options quickly dwindle down to a few. Large Bulk Materials like tobacco, recycled plastic bottles, recycled carpet pieces, trash, construction debris, biomass feed stocks (like wood products, hay, straw, and leaves) and the like are not only difficult to move through a process, but their product characteristics make it almost impossible to accurately measure the flow. Biomass Materials - Hay/Straw Biomass Materials - Wood Chunks/Chips Recycled Plastic Bottles Construction Debris To get an accurate mass flow measurement of bulk solids with large particles and irregular product characteristics the mass flow meter that is used must be able to measure the flow and have no dependence on these varying product characteristics like bulk de...

Weigh Belt Feeders have been widely used for many years to measure the flow rate and totalization of solid materials in a process while providing a feed device to move materials through that process.  For some products they can be accurate enough to keep in your process and deal with their calibration issues, but for some products, they can be a maintenance nightmare and something that needs to be replaced.  However, with their large footprint and complex installation, finding a replacement feeder that fits can be a real issue. One way to deal with this maintenance issue but to still have that vital process measurement is to install a flow meter that can be installed at the end of a belt conveyor.  Since the Weigh Belt is in essence a belt conveyor, it would be used as just a material handling device and not a flow meter.  Once such a device that can fit in such a tight space is the CentriFlow Type I meter from Eastern Instruments. CentriFlow Type I Meter ...

A question that we get asked a lot is "why do I need a Solids Flow Meter?" or "how can a Solids Flow Meter help my plant or process?"  To answer these questions, we first will look at what a Solids Flow Meter is and then where/how it can be implemented. CentriFlow Solids Mass Flow Meter from Eastern Instruments DEFINITION OF SOLIDS FLOW METER: Solids Flow Meters can be called many things from Flow Meters, Flow Instrumentation, Process Measurement Devices, or even just Process Meters.  A Solids Flow Meter can be considered an device or point measurement, that when placed in a process, provides a window into what is going on in the process.  It is an instrument that provides vital process flow data like Flow Rate and Totalization/Totalized Weight.  This can be on a continuous process or on a batch process.  The Flow Rate would be in mass units like lb/hr, kg/hr, Ton/hr, MTon/hr, etc, and the Totalization/Totalized Weight would be in mass units like lb, kg...