When it comes to metering the movement of critical liquid materials within the automotive, food and drink, industrial, laboratory, medical, petrochemical, and pharmaceutical industries, precise and reliable flow meter solutions are a necessity.
As a leading manufacturer of flow meters for critical applications, Titan Enterprises (www.flowmeters.co.uk) knows some projects have far less room for error than others, namely those in the medical and offshore sectors where people’s lives are at stake.
For example, in the event of a cardiac arrest, manually recording how much of what drugs are being administered to a patient is not typically high on the priority list. To address this application, Titan has licensed its ultrasonic technology to a leading international life sciences company for use in metering the injection of drugs during operations and other drug administering scenarios. Automatically recording the volume of drugs being administered not only saves time but could prove to be critical for making medical decisions in the moment or for future reference.
Drawing upon over 40 years of experience, Titan has learnt that each new flow meter development has its own challenges, the most prominent being the learning curve associated with optimized the product technology for different applications.
Currently a challenging project facing the engineering team at Titan is the development of a 1350 Bar low flow ultrasonic flow meters for sub-sea applications. Not only does this project delve into a completely new territory for ultrasonic flow metering, but the long-term, harsh environment of the sub-sea also poses a myriad of constraints and consequent required development of unique new design elements. Because of the inaccessibility of pipes in sub-sea applications, equipment reliability and redundancy are paramount seeing as how one tiny mistake could result in a domino effect of bad consequences.
This offshore project features pipe pressures that are extremely high and pipe wall thicknesses that are uncommonly thick for the bore size. As a result, the commissioning customer required a very wide flow range in the order of 1000:1 with good accuracy under all fluid conditions over a long period of time, up to twenty years. The only small bore ultrasonic meters Titan believe operate at these low flows are low-pressure polymer laboratory instruments which have low long-term tolerance to zero flow drift and are susceptible to changes in fluid characteristics. Ultimately, to meet its client’s needs, Titan developed brand new ultrasound injection techniques, new flow calculation algorithms, and a revolutionary method to reduce zero flow drift to a minimum.
So as you can see, while the fundamental principles of flow metering remain fairly constant across all market sectors, there are critical requirements posed by each application which have to be understood and a flow metering solution designed, developed and tested to provide optimum results.
Titan’s flow meters are typically constructed from the highest quality materials including stainless steel, titanium, chemically resistant engineering plastics, and sapphire. They also feature rugged bearings and offer excellent repeatability, making the products suitable for a wide range of applications from chemical plants and semi-conductors to beer monitoring equipment.
Over the past 40 years, Titan’s philosophy of “pushing the envelope by trying to do things a little different and better” has resulted in sales of over 500,000 products into 40 countries worldwide and a repeat purchase rate of 95%.
Looking to the future … Titan’s Trevor Forster had this to say in regards to flow meter innovation for critical applications:
“For critical applications, reliability is one of the prime considerations. Performance is also important, but I would argue repeatability is the most crucial aspect of flow meter performance. Modern flow metering techniques increasingly rely on electronics and largely have no moving parts. However, if an electronic device is to fail early it is normally in the first few hours of operation therefore a “burn-in” (or a smoke test as an American colleague calls it) can improve reliability in the field enormously. I believe it is inevitable that we will see more electronic-based flow metering devices with extensive pre-installation testing for these critical applications. There may even be some undiscovered or un-announced techniques I have no knowledge of which may sweep away our established techniques. Turn on the di-lithium crystals Scottie.”
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Titan Enterprises Ltd. has established itself as a leading manufacturer of off-the-shelf meters or fully bespoke OEM flow systems for challenging applications.
All flow meters produced by Titan are designed and manufactured to ISO9001 and calibrated to an uncertainty of ±0.25%. The company produces chemically resistant, high accuracy digital flow meters that are not only competitively priced but are engineered to give long-term reliable performance.
The portfolio of flowmeters offered by Titan Enterprises includes high-performance solutions such as the Atrato ultrasonic flowmeter, Oval Gear flowmeters, Turbine flowmeters, and an extensive instrument range.
