Analysis of Micro Flow Sensor using Excel Spreadsheet

The micro flow sensor with multiple temperature sensing elements on silicon substrate was proposed and fabricated for the flow sensor to measure wide flow range. To evaluate optimal spacing between central heater and each sensing element pair, a heat transfer equation in steady state was formulated to be finite difference equation in rectangular grid space. The numerical solutions using Excel Spreadsheet and VBA macros were set. From the results of numerical modeling and simulation, the micro flow sensor with multiple temperature sensing elements can be optimized to wide range flow velocity by the determination of the optimum spacing between central heater and each sensing element