UFP-20 Portable Transit Time Flow Meter

Common applications:

• Water (Hot water, cooling water, potable water, sea water etc…)
• Petroleum products
• Chemicals, including alcohol, acids, etc…
• Beverage, food and pharmaceutical processors
• Secondary sewage, waste treatment, etc…
• Mining industry, power plants for various processes
• Fire suppression system testing
• Pipeline leak detection and inspections
• Flow measurement surveys

If you are not sure if this model is well suited to your needs, please send us an email and describe your application and maybe even a photo of your proposed measurement site and mounting area and we might be able to indicate if the meter may be suited or possibly recommend a different type if necessary.

Suited pipe materials:

• You can select from the pre-configured pipe materials : Carbon Steel, Ductile Iron, Cast-Iron, Copper, Stainless Steel, PVC, FRP, Acrylic, or ‘user defined’
• If you have any other liquid, please select ‘user defined’ then in subsequent menus you can manually enter the fluid sound velocity of the material
  • Please check towards the back of the full manual for some other common pipe material settings you can use, or you may be able to find this with a web search.
• It will only work on ‘sound conducting pipe’, please be aware, there will be some pipes it cannot work on, for example: Measurement through pipes of asbestos material is possible on rare occasions, but for all practical purposes, measurement is not possible with this material.
  • If you are not sure always better to inquire and we can advise (or check with manufacturer) if it’s likely to be a compatible material or not

Can be used on pipes with liners:

• It can also measure on pipes with liners when configured accordingly, the liner must be well stuck to the pipe, you can select from the pre-configured liner materials: None, Epoxy, Mortar, Rubber, PVC, user defined.
• If you have any other liquid, please select ‘user defined’ then in subsequent menus you can manually enter the sound velocity of the material, you may be able to find this with a web search

Suited liquids:

• This style flow meter is designed for measurement of clean liquids (not necessarily clear, so oil is okay for example) with little or no particles and entrained air bubbles.
• They may not work with too much suspended solids in the liquid, however:
  • These Tokyo Keiki meters handle solids much better than many competitors, The beam width (radiating width) of acoustic waves are sufficient to enable stable measurement in the presence of small-sized solid particles in the fluid. In the case of large size debris which can obstruct acoustic signals, the flowmeter has a discrimination function which can differentiate such conditions from normal measurement values and ignore such data input. However when there is continuous flow of fluid containing large volume of solid particles and debris, problems such as mis-measurements or non-measurable conditions are apt to occur.
• Also exceedingly high levels of turbidity does cause reduction in signal. Manufacturer specifies turbidity levels up to 10,000 in the case of a pipe diameter of 1m. (Note: turbidity of 1g of refined Kaolin clay in 1 litter of water is 1,000.) Turbidity of 5,000 is quite severe, but as turbidity of river water rarely exceeds 1,000, there should be no problem for all practical purposes.
• You can select from the pre-configured liquids: Water, Seawater, Ethylene Glycol (50wt%), Glycerine, Acetone, user defined
• If you have any other liquid, please select ‘user defined’ then in subsequent menus you can manually enter the fluid sound velocity and viscosity.
  • Please check towards the back of the full manual for some other common fluid settings you can use, or you may be able to find your fluid sound velocity and viscosity with a web search.
• Setting parameters accurate is important for an accurate measurement!

General information:

• This is a ‘transit time’ flow meter. Transit time works on the principle of sending a sound signal up stream and then downstream from a pair of sending and receiving transducers. It measures time shift with and against the flow in calculating flow rate.
• When selecting a measurement site, it is important to select an area where the fluid flow profile is fully developed for an accurate measurement.
  • Choose a section of pipe that is always full of liquid (signal does not pass through air), such as a vertical pipe with flow in the upward direction or a full horizontal pipe.
  • On horizontal pipes it is best to mount the transducers on the side of the pipe. Avoid the top and bottom of the pipe to eliminate issue if air/gas has accumulated at the top of the pipe and sediment collected on the bottom of the pipe.
  • You want to measure where flow is stable and laminar, avoid turbulent areas. Generally, for best results a straight pipe run is required 10 pipe Diameters upstream and 5 pipe diameters downstream, but the recommendations vary depending on the situation, the datasheets have a section on this “installation site selection”
• You will need to know: Pipe outer diameter, pipe wall thickness, pipe material, liner details (if applicable), and what the liquid is, you set these parameters in the flow meter and it will give you a transducer spacing which is the distance to separate the sensors on the pipe.
• Included couplant (grease) is to be generously applied to the sensing area of the transducers, then you will need to mount the transducers on the pipe at that specified distance
• The mounting frames in the various sensor kits are very good to easily and accurately mount the sensors, where other brands often use magnets for the frames these frames use a chain/strap system so mounting on non magnetic pipes is just as easy.
• Something else to note is ultrasonic flow meters are not ideally suited for intermittent flow duration’s (EG a pump powering for 20 seconds on and then flow off, or with diaphragm pumps for example)
  • The reason is that the signal typically will take at least a few seconds to stabilise and display accurate readings.
  • They are also not suitable for accurate low dosing, or custody transfer applications as they will “miss” some of the totalised flow while the signal attenuates and the flow measurement ‘ramps up’ to it’s measurement accounting for the dampening function setting.