Some people may know little about open channel flow meters. They are actually a monitoring device to detect or measure the flow of the fluid in a conduit with a free surface, known as open channels and can be divided into non-contact type and contact type in terms of their working principle. As you may know that though there are different kinds of flow meters used for open channels, the non-contact type, for example, ultrasonic open channel flow meters may be the most suitable choice to measure the flow rate of liquids with viscosity for outdoor projects.

                             

Advantages of Ultrasonic Open Channel Flow Meters

The reason for such open channel flow meters lies in that generally there are thick liquids running in the open channels, like sewage, wastewater, so the first thing to consider when selecting such a device to measure flow rate is whether it can measure medium without clogging or corrosion problem concerned. Non-contact flow meters have three obvious advantages that firstly no matter which medium is to be measured, it has no worry about device corrosion, blocking and cleaning difficulty resulted from the measured medium, thus the maintenance cost is reduced.

                                 

Secondly, unlike electromagnetic flowmeters that require full capacity of liquid inside pipes, they have no much requirement on the capacity of medium to be measured but note that there must be consistent flow, and besides they are applicable for most flumes and weirs, like rectangular or triangular flumes, Parshall flume and etc. Last but not least, considering these open channel flow meters are used in outdoor applications, their enclosure is made of weatherproof injection molded plastic so it is suitable for use in a wide variety of environments, though in harsh conditions.

With increasing demand in recent few years, open channel flow meters have a wide range of applications in wastewater treatment plant, sewage outfalls, city sewers or farmland irrigation. But note that they must be installed correctly, if not, then the overall accuracy will be diminished.