Microwave mass flow sensor for process monitoring applications

A particulates mass flow meter has been developed using a cylindrical waveguide resonator. Two directional MicroStrip-Patch couplers confine the resonant measurement section of the sensor without any disturbance of the material flow in the pipeline. A new extraction algorithm has been introduced to detect the material concentration and the velocity of particulate solids out of a single time continuous measurement. The autocorrelation function and the pre-knowledge of the time dependent phase shift, when particles flying through the sensor, where used for precise particle velocimetry. Measurements with a built up sensor at 5.5 GHz where carried out to prove the concept. Application areas of this sensor type are gas/solids, gas/liquid and low loss liquid/solid flows in various industrial applications.