Advancing Thermal Mass Gas Flow Meters For 21st Century Process & Plant Needs

By Gerardo Vargas, Sr. Member Technical Staff, Fluid Components International (FCI)

Process, instrument and plant engineers are challenged continuously by productivity and plant operating efficiency objectives as well as ensuring plant compliance with an ever expanding list of regulations. This situation burdens the plant’s process engineering and operations team with requirements for more data and information about the processes to better manage, control and report on them all under the scrutiny of being cost effective. The bar keeps being raised for accuracy, repeatability, data, information, communications, diagnostics, record keeping, reducing maintenance and increasing service life.

This challenge was heard over and over again as Fluid Components International (FCI) listened to what users required in their process gas flow meters to support their current plant needs and what they expected to meet their plant of the future vision. With this voice of the customer feedback, FCI’s engineering team began the process several years ago of developing its next generation thermal mass air/gas flow meter.

It is not surprising that thermal mass flow meters, applied in air/gas flow measurements, have been one of the top three fastest growing flow technologies the past six years and projected to be the fastest growing, non-custody transfer driven technology the next five years. Leading engineers in the process community are increasingly recognizing thermal dispersion flow meter technology, a direct mass flow measuring technology, as an extremely effective, no maintenance, highly reliable and low cost solution for their gas flow applications