Design and Implementation of Real-Time Flow Measurement System Using Hall Probe Sensor and PC-Based SCADA

A rotameter is a variable-area-type flow rate measuring instrument in which the position of a metallic float in a transparent conical tube is taken as a flow rate indicator. It has the disadvantage that it is a local indicating type instrument and special type of transducer is used for its remote indication. In this paper, a noncontact flow rate measurement technique using Hall probe sensor and rotameter is designed, developed, and tested. In this design, a float carrying a thin circular permanent magnet is used, and a Hall probe sensor placed outside the rotameter tube has been used to sense the variation of magnetic field of the magnet with the variation of float position. A signal conditioner unit has been used to convert the Hall probe sensor output into 1-5 V dc signal. This dc signal output of the signal conditioner has been sent to a PC-based flow indicator through optoisolator and analog input channel of a data acquisition system (DAS) card. The PC-based flow indicator has been designed using the Lab Tech Note Book Pro software and the PC-based supervisory control and DAS. A theoretical equation has been derived to explain the operation of the system. The performance of the system has been tested experimentally, and the experimental results are reported in this paper. A very good repeatability and linearity of results has been observed.