Sometimes you just need to know what’s happening inside a pipe. But promptly measuring the flow of water, chemicals, beverages, petroleum products, or other fluids inside pipes has traditionally been anything but a picnic—until now.
SoundWater Technologies, LLC, based in Wenatchee, Washington, began shipping a new kind of portable flow meter called the Orcas. Orcas, which is much more than just a flow meter, transmits measurements wirelessly to nearly any mobile device, and with its unique all-in-one design promises to help technicians anywhere complete testing, monitoring, troubleshooting and other tasks in much less time, and with much less hassle, than has been possible before.
Orcas combines several advanced technologies in a new way to enable rapid measurement and analysis of flow inside a pipe without any cutting or drilling. Ultrasonic sound waves (inaudible to the human ear) are used to reveal the flow rate inside. Traditionally, measuring flow in a pipe required cutting the pipe, installing an in-line meter, and welding everything back together—a slow, tedious, and costly process.
The portable, four-pound sensor—the device that sends and receives ultrasonic waves—is readily attached to the outside of a pipe using a cam-cleat apparatus. It is literally mounted in seconds, and there are no wires to handle. Then the technician uses the companion Orcas app on an Android or Apple iPhone to take flow readings. Using Bluetooth makes the flow meter wireless eliminating the tangle of wires required with conventional flow meters. In a typical application a technician can setup Orcas and start taking flow measurements in 40 seconds. The smartphone-based app means users always have the latest signal processing and analysis capabilities without the hassle of carting around a bulky box.
Measuring flow through pipes is essential in a wide range of settings: well monitoring, pump testing, flowmeter verification, irrigation, wastewater, potable water, cooling, chemical production, food and beverage processing, semiconductor manufacturing, pump applications, petroleum processing, water utilities, and dozens of other industries and professions regularly need to make these measurements.
