Fluid flow rate estimation using acceleration sensors

Measuring water flow rate for a fire hose using wired accelerometers for smart fire fighting

“…Dinardo et al [17] and Campagna et al [18] used a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) to measure pipe vibrations due to internal fluid flow. Dinardo et al showed a linear relationship between the first harmonic amplitude of the transverse acceleration and the flow rate inside a pipe.…”

Measuring water flow rate for a fire hose using a wireless sensor network for smart fire fighting

“…18) [23]. The decreasing trend at higher flow rates was not expected based on previous research for rigid pipes [8][9][10][14][15][16]. The peaks also continued to occur in approximately the same region as for the wired tests.…”

“…Vibrations from fluid or gas flow can occur in any relatively rigid pipe such as water, oil, and gas utility or industrial pipes. Wired sensors, including accelerometers, have been attached securely to the outside surface of rigid pipes to measure fluid or gas induced pipe vibrations to determine flow rate within the pipe in research settings as well as in the utility pipeline industry [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

“…A detailed literature review was included in the previous technical report [23] describing past work focused on detecting vibration from flowing water in relatively rigid pipe using sensors like accelerometers [24]. Standard deviation of acceleration increased as flow rate increased in rigid pipes [8][9][10][14][15][16]. This relationship was found to be similar for flexible fire hose at lower flow rates, from 0 LPM to at least about 300 LPM (80 GPM), however at higher flow rates, above 300 LPM (80 GPM), the standard deviation of acceleration became unpredictable, often peaking and decreasing [23].…”

Flow Measurement by Wavelet Packet Analysis of Sound Emissions

“…The possibility of pipe monitoring or flow measurement based on sound analysis has been investigated by researchers. Most of the researchers who worked on this subject have not reported measurement accuracies, but rough statistical correlations; for example, Dinardo et al 1 and Campagna et al 2 showed a linear dependence between the amplitude of the vibration acceleration in its frequency domain and the flow rate in a pipe and developed a fluid flow rate monitoring system; Campagna et al 2 developed a methodology for the measurement of the fluid flow rate in a pipe, by means of appropriate evaluations to be implemented on the vibrational signals in the frequency domain; Dinardo et al 3 related the power content of the processed signals (by introducing the signal root mean square value) to the flow rate in a pipe; Saito et al 4 and Thompson et al 5 developed a relationship between pressure fluctuations caused by sudden flow rate changes; Evans et al 6 developed a flow rate measurement technique based on signal noise from an accelerometer attached to the surface of a pipe. They defined the signal noise as the standard deviation of the frequency averaged time-series signal and presented experimental results that indicate a nearly quadratic relationship between the signal noise and the mass flow rate in the pipe; Safari and Tavassoli 7 showed empirical results that indicate that there is a relationship between the output signal of microphone in frequency domain and the flow rate in a pipe; Medeiros and Barbosa 8 presented a method for measuring flow in pipelines based on the frequency domain values of vibration caused by the flow of water; and Hu et al 9 used accelerometer on a pipe to recognize the type of household water use activity.…”