“Slippery when wet”, Industrial low flow control

08-03-2019 Tim Geurtzen

Industrial low flow applications have to cope with a wide variety of environmental and process conditions, but what does this mean when we talk about ‘industrial’? Knowledge about the specific application and low flow fluidics will help a lot to prevent slipping.

We often refer to ‘uncontrolled macro-environments’ for equipment, when we talk about ‘outdoors’. However, it can also be a room or factory without (local) climate control in which equipment is experiencing comparable temperature and humidity variations as outdoors.

What is important in low flow applications and what kind of challenges do you encounter? Let me share my ideas in this blog.

What is IP-rating?

I experienced that IP-rating is not always interpreted correctly. Having the highest possible IP-rating is often mistaken with having an ‘industrial-device’. But what does the IP-rating actually indicate? The first digit of an IP-rating only refers to dust ingress protection and the second digit refers to the liquid ingress protection.
Therefore, a higher IP-rating does not always mean that the instrument is better and more suitable for your application. Hence, it can even make things much worse in practice. A reason for this is that even the tightest IP-rated constructions may breathe in and out, caused by internal and external temperature variations. This can lead to internal condensation, especially in high humidity environments, if no further precautions are taken.

The importance of dedicated low flow equipment

Not surprisingly, things are often a lot smaller in low flow applications. The other side of this coin is that common process and environmental disturbances have a proportional larger impact on these low flow applications compared to traditional ‘normal’-flow applications.

In general, an industrial flow instrument, like a flow meter, needs to be suitable to a lot of external influences, such as resistance to corrosion and impact or pressure ratings. These requirements often lead to selecting more standard industrial flow meters instead of specialised low flow instruments. This is not always the best solution for the required low flow ranges and can lead to unsatisfactory results.

Industrial low flow mass flow meters

What we want to achieve is to have rigid flow measurement and control, suitable for the application during the economic lifetime of the installation. Therefore, it would be best to select the best flow instrument fit for purpose. In case of low flow applications I therefore recommend to use dedicated low flow equipment. These flow meters are designed and tested for these kinds of applications.
Our industrial low flow mass flow meters and controllers can be equipped with integrated control valves or dedicated pumps, especially designed for low flow purpose. Stable control characteristics are combined with signal-to-noise ratio plus being proportionally less sensitive for disturbances.

Bronkhorst industrial low flow mass flow meters

We gladly support you in process and environmental equipment selections including system design aspects, starting with selecting the most suitable measuring and control principles. Our flow meter product portfolio contains laboratory-style and light-industrial flow meters to heavy-duty IEC-Ex/ATEX-rated industrial versions (…having a “high” IP-rating as well).

Drive your low flow control reliable and safely!