Bronkhorst

Flow Meter & Pump Combinations

Why do you need a mass flow meter or volume flow meter if you have a dosing or metering pump?

Traditionally, dosing- or metering pumps are believed to be accurate. For every rotation of the pump, the pump head will displace a known volume of a liquid. This results in a known pumped volume over time based on the amount of rotations. In practice however, it appears to be difficult to achieve a high level of accuracy. A deviation of a few percent is not exceptional. Why?

Inaccuracies like this are caused by many changing process conditions, such as:

  • Temperature
  • Pressure shifting
  • Air entrapment
  • Wear of components 

One or more of these factors can impact the amount of liquid being displaced with each pump head rotation, resulting in a small inaccuracy. However, this can result in quite a large flow deviation when having multiple rotations in a period of time.
 
Such effects can be avoided by using a Bronkhorst ES-FLOW or mini CORI-FLOW flowmeter directly controlling the pump.

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Skid solution with mass flow controller

Ultrasonic volume flow meter with pump


This video explains the principle of operation of the ultrasonic volume flow meter and how the flow can be adjusted through the combined used of a ultrasonic volume flow meter and a gear pump.

Find your Ultrasonic flow meter

Coriolis Mass Flow Meter with pump


This video explains the mechanism of a Coriolis mass flow meter and how the flow can be adjusted quickly and precisely through the combined use of a Coriolis mass flow meter and a gear pump.

Find your Coriolis flow meter

Integrated PID for direct pump control

Just by adding a mass flow meter or volume flow meter to your process, you will not get the best solution as you still need an additonal PID controller to drive a pump to achieve the desired dose or flow. The PID controller is used to compare the real flow signal with the desired flow. The Bronkhorst Coriolis mass flow meters and ultrasonic volume flow meters have an integrated PID controller. So, by using these instruments it is not necessary to add an additional PID controller. You do not have to include the pump in the control system anymore, you just give a set point demand to the flow meter and it will drive the pump to the desired flow. The big advantage here is that the mass flow meter or volume flow meter use a high frequency signal, which makes this way of controlling the pump much faster than the traditional way of pump control. 

It's like a black box: You indicate your desired flow and the black box generates this flow for you, stable and with a high accuracy as well. 
 

Your benefits

  • Less waste & cost reduction: You know what you pump in real-time.
  • Less down time; Fluid independent flow measurement and control - no need for recalibration when changing fluids.
  • Real measurement of data on flow performance for quality and monitoring purposes, including a response alarm.
  • Automatic correction for decreased pump performance over time.
  • Correction on ambient conditions that have an influence on your physical properties of the fluid.
  • Integrated PID controller for fast and accurate flow control.
  • Remote communication with the control loop via Bus protocol.

Downloads

Manuals
Manual liquid dosing / control
Manual liquid dosing set
Hook-up diagrams
Hook-up diagram M13-M14 with Dunker BG-series
Hook-up diagram ML120 with Dunker BG-series
Hook-up diagram M15 with Dunker BG-series
Hook-up diagram ES-FLOW with Dunker BG-series

Bronkhorst dosing solutions with pump

Liquid mass flow meter with pump

Coriolis Mass Flow Meter with pump

The combination of a Coriolis mass flow meter with pump can be used for various dosing applications such as dosing liquid colourants (dye) to detergent, laundry care products and cleaning products. 
 

Read the blog about pump control
Dosing solution with ultrasonic volume flow meter and pump

Ultrasonic volume flow meter with pump

Also the ES-FLOW ultrasonic liquid volume flow meter can be used in comination with a pump. It makes it easy to dose additives, such as colourings, flavourings and acids have to be added to the production process. 
 

Read the blog about additive dosing
Skid solution with Coriolis mass flow meter

Skid solution with Coriolis Mass Flow Meter with gear pump and pressure sensor

For accurate control of liquid flows in a continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing application Bronkhorst designed and supplied a complete skid solution that combined a Coriolis mass flow meter with a gear pump, pressure sensor and a number of liquid filters and valves.

Read the application story
Liquid dosing module

Liquid Dosing Module

Besides these combinations, Bronkhorst can also facilitate customers in more complex solutions, integrating mass flow measurement and control equipment into boxes, modules or cabinets, designed in collaboration with our customers.
A liquid dosing module like this can be used for ratio control, dosing, filling, mixing and blending. 

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Dosing solutions can be used in many different industries

Low flow dosing solutions can be used in many different industries. For example: In processes where liquid have to be dispensed into a container that will require quality assurance. If you use a flow meter to control the dose you can achieve 100% quality checking of your product with reduced human input. Or if you need to dose additives, performance chemicals or mix liquids then the ability to control the flow of the additive and know what that flow is can be a huge advantage to the outcome of the application.

 

Application notes of dosing applications

Liquefied gas dosing

In this application a WADose high pressure pump, a simple yet complete solution, has been used for dosing low-flow liquefied gases. 

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afbeelding
afbeelding

Accurate dosing of small organic solvent flows

Within chemical industry, the supply of organic solvents is a frequently occurring operation. In this context, Bronkhorst delivers devices to accurately dose small flows of organic solvent.

View application note

Pharmaceutical dosing

In this application a solution has been shared for dosing very small amounts of pharmaceutical agents in a liquid state, using Coriolis mass flow controllers and a high pressure pump. 

View application note
pharmacy