A Method for the Measurement of Flow Rate in a Pipe Using a Microphone Array

등간격으로 배열된 마이크로폰을 이용한 관내 유량측정 방법

Proposed in this paper is a method of measurement of the flow rate in a pipe. The sound waves which are propagated within a pipe are characterized by that the wavenumber in the axial direction is changed according to the flow rate, and these characteristics are used in the present method of measurement of the flow rate. The amount of change in wavenumber of sound waves according to the flow rate can be obtained from the relationship among acoustic pressure signals within a pipe, which are measured by using a microphone array. The flow rate can be obtained by using the amount of change in wavenumber of sound waves and the relational equation of the flow rate. With respect to errors that can occur during the measurement of the flow rate, the types of errors and the method of correction of those errors are presented. This method of measurement of the flow rate has application limitation conditions due to the sensor interval, assumption of sound waves as plane waves, etc. The numerical simulation and experiments for measuring the flow rate of air in a pipe are performed in order to verify the applicability of this method of measurement of the flow rate. The experimental results are shown to be similar to those of the numerical simulation. And the flow rate measured is shown to be consistent with the actual value within 5% error bound.