How Veco's precision technology enabled the next-generation industry leading thermal mass flow meter and controller

Bronkhorst is the industry leader in thermal mass flow meters and controllers. Veco has been a reliable partner for Bronkhorst for 35 years, co-developing key components and pushing boundaries to enable the next generation of world leading products. Learn about Veco’s contribution to an award nominated next generation thermal mass flow meter/controller in this blog.

Gas flow measurement in general

Flow measurement is recognised as one of the ‘need-to-know’ process parameters, alongside temperature, pressure and level measurement. Accurate mass flow measurement of gases is critical in operations and control of many industrial and laboratory processes.
In the food and beverage sector, the chemical industry and semiconductor fabrication, flow meters accuracy is often the determining factor between optimum quality and rejected products. In areas like laboratory research, pilot plants and custody transfer, precise and repeatable measurement is equally critical.

Thermal mass flow meters

Thermal mass flow meters measure the mass flow of gases, employing a combination of heated elements and temperature sensors, with thermodynamic principles used to derive actual flow. They need limited correction for changes in temperature, pressure or density and are extremely accurate, especially when measuring low and very low flow rates, and are no longer regarded as high cost.

Picture 1: Shunt principle of the laminar flow element (LFE); only a part of the gas flow will flow through the sensor. The rest flow will flow through the LFE.

Critical component

The Laminar Flow Element as seen in Picture 1 is a critical component of the thermal mass flow meter using the bypass principle. The functionality of the Laminar Flow Element (LFE) is to create a shunt. In the case of a thermal mass flow meter based on a bypass principle the mass flow is measured in a bypass of the main flow channel. Due to the specific dimentions of the LFE the same linear pressure/ flow characteristics as the capillary sensor tube can be created.

The LFE consists of thin discs with etched channels. A combination of multiple thin discs allow the measurement of very small (less than 1 mln/min) as well as medium (20 ln/min) flow rates. These flow discs are created by Veco by using the Chemical Etching process.

Creating industry-leading products with Chemical-Etched metal parts

Miniturisation of products – and therefore components – is a necessity for manufacturers in order to create industry-leading products. For the flow discs in LFE we applied the Chemical etching process, a subtractive manufacturing method for micro-precision parts.

Chemical Etching

Chemical Etching (also known as Photo-Chemical Machining (PCM) and Chemical Milling) is as precise as it is quick and economical. Complicated, multi-level, multi-feature, high precision parts can be produced without the need for expensive tooling or machinery. Compared to ‘traditional’ machine processes such as CNC Machining, Stamping, Pressing, Wire Erosion and even more ‘contemporary’ processes such as Laser Cutting and Electro Chemical Machining, Chemical Etching with its flexible tooling and scalability provides you with an extremely competitive alternative right through from prototyping to large scale production. Rapid prototypes can be produced from your drawings in a matter of days.

Key benefits

Stress and burr free parts
Micron sized features
Tight tolerances
Wide range of materials
Thicknesses from 25um to 2mm
Round holes, sharp edges, straight or profiled edges
Rapid prototyping
Cost effective manufacturing
Flexible tooling allowing easy modifications

EL-FLOW Prestige mass flow meter

EL-FLOW Prestige thermal gas flow meter is the next generation of Bronkhorst Mass Flow Meters / Controllers for gases. Nearly all core components have been redesigned and many improvements and innovations have been incorporated. With this new series Bronkhorst introduced the “Differential Temperature Balancing” technology, ensuring a superb sensor stability. You can sign in for the White Paper ‘A holistic view based on data to design components which offer optimal performance of a thermal mass flow meter/controller’, written by Bronkhorst, which describes the innovations integrated in the EL-FLOW Prestige.

Download white paper