There are a variety of economic and environmental factors that are influencing changes in the water management industry. Water scarcity, rising costs, technology, and conservation mandates are all forcing the adoption of better, more effective water management trends and techniques. These new trends are helping flow management professionals and facilities engineers to remain relevant, and competitive in an uncertain global economy.

Some of the more critical factors influencing the water management industry include:

• Aging infrastructure, which is prone to leaks, blockage, and breakage, needs updating to facilitate accurate detection and measurement. Modern flow measurement equipment in conjunction with infrastructure upgrades can help reduce maintenance and overall cost of ownership.

• Trends in Green Architecture are enabling a shift to more efficient, environmentally friendly flow measurement systems. The expansion of both residential and commercial buildings has made a dramatic impact on the environment. By adopting a practice of greener, sustainable architecture and design - the negative impact of building and operating commercial facilities such as hospitals, factories, universities, and government buildings can be greatly reduced.

• Automation technology has helped lower costs and improve efficiencies by eliminating many traditional manual processes involved in flow measurement. The introduction of wireless technology has enabled comprehensive remote measurement and reporting that wasn't possible with traditional mechanical equipment. New sciences for advanced meter reading (AMR) and metering infrastructure (AMI) have helped eliminate manual functions while improving accuracy, and automated the detection of outages, tampering, and equipment malfunctions – while boosting accuracy of reporting and billing.

• Product improvements through the use of ultrasonic technology. New ultrasonic meters have been specifically engineered for water metering applications where traditional, water meters have failed. They employ cutting-edge digital signal processing (DSP) and have virtually eliminated the need for moving parts dramatically reducing maintenance, and wear and tear on the equipment. This critical factor helps maintain system accuracy over extremely long periods of time.

How Ultrasonic Flowmeters Work

Ultrasonic water meters represent a new trend in modern water metering in both commercial and residential installations. A typical ultrasonic water meter consists of a sensor and an electronic console. The sensor has two ultrasonic transducers (A and B) built into its body. Each transducer functions as both ultrasonic transmitter and receiver. The electronic console operates the two transducers by alternately transmitting and receiving a burst of sound energy and measuring the transit time that it takes for sound to travel between the two transducers. The difference in the transit time measured is directly and exactly related to the velocity of the water in the pipe. The flow rate is calculated from the measured velocity and the pipe's inner diameter.

This post is shared by spiremt.com, which is a leading supplier of ultrasonic flow meters, water flow meters , electrical energy meters and more.