Note: Signal conditioning of a hot-film anemometer for a periodic flow rate monitoring system

Abstract

A flow monitoring system based on a constant temperature hot-film anemometer is presented. The device has been designed to monitor a dispensing process of extremely low quantities of adhesive material. The monitoring device presented in this paper is useful in industrial applications where exact flow speed tracking is not needed, but reliability and tolerance to parameters variability are essential. During the design of the device, problems related to the physical characteristic of the calorimetric sensor, in particular its thermal capacitance, and to the periodic nature of the monitored flow have been taken into account and suitable solutions have been implemented. The schematic representation of the monitoring device together with the experimental results obtained by monitoring fluids with different physical characteristics are presented.