Flow meter
AssigneeCombustion Dynamics Corp.
InventorMurad M. Ismailov
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Various embodiments of the present invention provide a flow meter device having a laser Doppler anemometer (LDA) which measures the instantaneous center line velocity of fluid flow in a pipe. The flow meter may process the instantaneous velocity so obtained to compute the volumetric flow rate, mass rate, and/or other flow characteristics (e.g., as instantaneous quantities and/or integrated over a time interval) The flow meter may use an electronic processing method. The electronic processing method may provide essentially an exact solution to the Navier-Stokes equations for any periodically oscillating flow.
Claims38
A flow meter for bench testing fuel flow characteristics in a fuel injection system, which fuel injection system includes at least one fuel injector, comprising:
- a measurement tube via which fuel flowing through the fuel injector passes;
- a laser-Doppler anemometer generating a pair of laser beams intersecting in a control measurement volume in a center line of fuel flow through the measurement tube;
- a velocity calculating mechanism connected to the laser-Doppler anemometer for calculating a series of instantaneous center line velocities of fuel flow through the measurement tube;
- and
- a flow rate calculating mechanism connected to the velocity calculating mechanism for calculating a series of instantaneous volumetric flow rates in the measurement tube and for calculating a mass flow rate by integrating the series of instantaneous volumetric flow rates.
A flow meter for bench testing fuel flow characteristics in a fuel injection system, which fuel injection system includes at least one fuel injector, comprising:
- at least one of an input pipe for supplying fuel to the fuel injector and an output pipe for receiving fuel from the fuel injector;
- a measurement tube installed in one of the input pipe and the output pipe;
- a laser-Doppler anemometer generating a pair of laser beams intersecting in a control measurement volume in a center line of fuel flow through the measurement tube;
- a velocity calculating mechanism connected to the laser-Doppler anemometer for calculating a series of instantaneous center line velocities of fuel flow through the measurement tube;
- and
- a flow rate calculating mechanism connected to the velocity calculating mechanism for calculating a series of instantaneous volumetric flow rates in the measurement tube and for calculating a mass flow rate by integrating the series of instantaneous volumetric flow rates.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.