A Low-Cost Centrifugal Force Type Flow Sensor for Measuring the Flow Rate of a Fluid Through a Pipeline

In this paper, attempts have been made to develop a very simple low-cost flow sensor by using the effect of centrifugal force of a fluid on circular pipe section. The theoretical analysis of the sensor is reported in this paper. The centrifugal force developed by the flowing fluid on one end of a common balance has been sensed by an inductive pickup placed in a bridge network. The output of the bridge network has been found to vary with flow rate. Experiments have been carried out to find the static characteristic of the sensor and the experimental results are reported in this paper. From these experiments, it has been observed that the experimental graph follows the theoretically predicted characteristic with very good repeatability.