Task

In Austria, the exhaust gas cleaning system filters more than 90% of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide and almost 100% of dust from the exhaust gases. The high efficiency of the plant is due in part to the use of heat exchangers. In the condensation tubes of a heat exchanger in a power plant, flow and temperature must be measured continuously. These two variables determine the efficiency of the heat exchanger, but the ultrasonic flowmeters originally used did not perform well in this application.

Some flowmeters require a very long section of pipe - up to 50 times the nominal pipe size - upstream of the measurement point to stabilize the flow after passing through bends, valves or constrictions. This has a major impact on the size of the systems. The customer requested a flowmeter that could be used in more compact installations.

In addition, the water in the process can have a conductivity of 6.4 μS/cm and a temperature of 65 °C. For conductivities <20 μS/cm, magnetic-inductive measurement usually requires special devices that have a stronger magnetic field and a higher sampling frequency to ensure reliable measurement.

Solution approach

The plant operator now uses an magnetic inductive flowmeter from JUMO to measure the flow rate. The reason is that with the JUMO flowTRANS MAG S01, the required distance between bends, valves, and constrictions and the flowmeter is only 3 times the nominal pipe size.

In addition, the JUMO flowTRANS MAG S01 has coils with a very strong electromagnetic field as standard, which ensures stable measurement at conductivities <20 μS/cm and meets the customer's high requirements without the need for significantly more expensive measurement solutions.

Project outcome

The diagnostic function allows quick detection of unwanted deposits on the electrode. Such contamination is common when the flowmeter is operated in hot water.

The flexible placement without a long upstream pipe, simple configuration options, and excellent measurement results with low conductivity of the medium ultimately led the customer to choose the JUMO flowTRANS MAG S01 flowmeter.