Grease / Waste / water flowmeter?

[Chinook82]

A tough flow / totalizer application where waste water and grease is collected from restaurants and food processing. The flow is made up of grease trap waste with water at 3 to 5%, with food bits, sludge and grease up to 35% solids. It's the solids content that is the most critical.
All suggestion gladly received!

 

[roydm]

I think a straight tube coreolis meter measuring the mass, that way it will measure the mass of entrained solids as well.
Split tube variety would plug up and lumpd cause zero drift.
Roy

 

[HEC]

Chinook,
What are you trying to measure, or use the measurement for? That may affect the flowmeter selection. Although a single tube mass flow meter is probably best for slurry application.

Mark Hutton

 

[glowing]

it sounds like the water / grease mixture fluctuates in your application. I wonder how accurately a coriolis would then measure the solid because of the fluctuating SG. I think nuclear is likely your best option, though this may not be acceptable in your process.

 

[Chinook82]

I thought nuclear would only measure density? Never seen a nuclear flowmeter.

 

[HEC]

Chinook,
Returning to my original question, what are you doing with the measurements? If you only want to measure the total mass entering the plant then a mass flow meter is appropriate. If you need to know what the mass flow into the plant consists of (percent fat etc) then the mess flow meter is not suitable. So please advise what you need the measurement for and then we can advise the best solution.

Mark Hutton

 

[JimCasey]

Mass flow meters for such as this can be somewhat pedantic, such as a weight-type flowmeter. Fill the tub to a certain weight, divide by time, dump the tub, and repeat. It can be automated. Acrison, I believe, makes a device similar.

If the food bits are crushable without too much force, a positve displacement flowmeter works even better when there are hi-viscosity ladings. Nutating disc, Rotary piston, Oval Gear are all techniques. But all this is back to HEC's question: Whad do you want to learn from the flow?