NEW FLOWMETERS BASED ON AMORPHOUS MAGNETIC WIRES

A new sensor for measuring liquid's flow rate in closed conduits is pr esented. This sensor utilizes two amorphous negative magnetostrictive wires. One of them is prestressed and firmly fixed at the walls of the conduit. being under additional stress when the liquid flows. This st ress is detected by means of a magneto-inductive pulsed voltage output at the end of the wire. The second wire is fixed at the one end insid e the conduit, in order to be orthogonal to it, so that flowing liquid causes displacement and bending on it. Such displacement is detected by means of a linear variable differential transformer, its primary an d secondary windings being along the length of the fluid conduit. Expe rimental results indicated that different rates of flowing fluid can b e detected by the two techniques. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.