Process Monitor for Spent Grain Flow
The Background: Our customer is a brewery that wants to monitor the flow of their spent grain discharge line.
The Problem: The spent grain line is water with high solid content making it a prime candidate for a Doppler style ultrasonic flow meter with clamp-on technology, though the customer is accustomed to measuring in mass units.
The Solution: We recommended the Greyline Instruments DFM 5.1 Doppler Flow Meter paired with a Define Instruments LD-PRC Panel Meter. Though the DFM 5.1 will only provide velocity measurement, by assuming a constant density of the spent grain, the 4 and 20mA scaling points of the LC-PRC can easily be manipulated to display a pound per minute mass flow rate.
In this particular application, the DFM 5.1 Doppler flow meter will output a 4-20mA signal that equates to 0-100 GPM (gallons per minute). The customer has provided a spent grain density of 7.753 lb/gal (pounds per gallon) so the 20mA programming in the LD-PRC is set to 775.3 lb/min (100 gal/min x 7.753 lb/gal = 775.3 lb/min).