• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.335-347
• /
• 2016

One of major errors in flow rate measurement for two-phase flow using an Electrical Capacitance Sensor (ECS) concerns sensor sensitivity under temperature raise. The thermal effect on electrical capacitance sensor (ECS) system for air-water two-phase flow monitoring include sensor sensitivity, capacitance measurements, capacitance change and node potential distribution is reported in this paper. The rules of 12-electrode sensor parameters such as capacitance, capacitance change, and change rate of capacitance and sensitivity map the basis of Air-water two-phase flow permittivity distribution and temperature raise are discussed by ANSYS and MATLAB, which are combined to simulate sensor characteristic. The cross-sectional void fraction as a function of temperature is determined from the scripting capabilities in ANSYS simulation. The results show that the temperature raise had a detrimental effect on the electrodes sensitivity and sensitive domain of electrodes. The FE results are in excellent agreement with an experimental result available in the literature, thus validating the accuracy and reliability of the proposed flow rate measurement system.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.32 no.7
• /
• pp.542-548
• /
• 2008

A thermal mass air flow sensor (MAFS), which consists of a micro-heater and thermo-resistive sensors on the silicon-nitride ($Si_3N_4$) thin membrane structure, is micro-fabricated by MEMS processes. Two thermo-resistive temperature sensors are located at $100{\mu}m$ upstream and downstream from the micro-heater respectively. The thermal characteristics are measured to find the best measurement indicator. The micro-heater is operated under constant power condition, and four flow indicators are investigated. The normalized temperature indicator shows good physical meaning and is easy to use in practice. It is found that the configurations and heating power of thermal-resistive elements are the dominant factors to determine the range of the flow measurement in the MAFS with higher sensitivity and accuracy.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.33 no.8
• /
• pp.573-579
• /
• 2009

A thermal mass air flow sensor, which consists of a micro-heater and thermal sensors on the silicon-nitride thin membrane structure, is micro-fabricated by MEMS processes. Three thermo-resistive sensors, one for the measurement of microheater temperature, the others for the measurement of membrane temperature upstream and downstream of the micro-heater respectively, are used. The micro-heater is operated under the constant temperature difference mode via a real time controller, based on inlet air temperature. Two design models for microfabricated flow sensor are compared with experimental results and confirmed their applicabilities and limitations. The thermal characteristics are measured to find the best flow indicator. It is found that two normalized temperature indicators can be adopted with some advantages in practice. The flow sensor with this control mode can be adopted for wide capability of high speed and sensitivity in the very low and medium velocity ranges.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.595-600
• /
• 2005

A micro flow sensor on silicon substrate allows the fabrication of small components where many different functions can be integrated so that the functionality of the sensors can be increased. Further more, the small size of the elements these sensors can be quite fast. A thermal mass flow sensor measures the asymmetry of temperature profile around the heater which is modulated by the fluid flow. In normal, a mass flow sensor is composed of a central heater and a pair of temperature sensing elements around the heater A new 2-D wide range micro flow sensor structure with three pairs of temperature sensors and a central heater was proposed and numerically simulated by Finite Difference formulation to confirm the feasibility of the flow sensor structure in time domain.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2003.11a
• /
• pp.308-313
• /
• 2003

Thermal mass flow meters (TMFMs) are most widely used for measuring mass flow rates in the semiconductor industry. A TMFM should have a short response time in order to measure the time-varying flow rate rapidly and accurately. Therefore it is important to study transient heat transfer phenomena in the sensor tube of a TMFM that is the most critical part in the TMFM. In the present work, a simple numerical model for transient heat transfer phenomena of the sensor tube of a TMFM is presented. Numerical solutions for the tube and fluid temperatures in a transient state are obtained using the proposed model and compared with experimental results to validate the proposed model. Based on numerical solutions, heat transfer mechanism in a transient state in the sensor tube is explained. Finally, a correlation for predicting the response time of a sensor tube is presented. The correlation is verified by experimental results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2009.10a
• /
• pp.591-592
• /
• 2009

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2007.05b
• /
• pp.2482-2487
• /
• 2007

Numerical simulations are conducted for the analysis of a thermal mass air flow sensor with periodic heating pulses on silicon-nitride ($Si_3N_4$) thin membrane structure. This study aims to find the locations of temperature sensors on the thin membrane and the heating pulse conditions, that the higher sensitivity can be achieved, for the development of a MEMS fabricated mass air flow sensor which is driven in periodic heating pulse. The simulations, thus, focus on the membrane temperature profile according to variation of the flow velocity, heating duration time and imposed power. The flow velocity of the simulations is ranging from 3 m/s to 35 m/s, heating duration time from 1 ms to 3 ms and imposed power from 50 mW to 90 mW. The corresponding Reynolds numbers vary from 1000 to 10000.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.85-92
• /
• 2006

A new silicon micro flow sensor with multiple temperature sensing elements was proposed and fabricated in considering wide range flow velocity measuring device. Thermal mass flow sensor measures the asymmetry of temperature profile around the heater which is modulated by the fluid flow. A micro mass flow sensor was normally composed of a central heater and a pair of temperature sensing elements around it. A new 2-D wide range micro flow sensor structure with three pairs of temperature sensing elements and a central heater was proposed and numerically simulated by Finite Difference Formulation to confirm the feasibility of the wide flow range sensor structure. To confirm the simulation result, the new flow sensor was fabricated on silicon substrate and the basic flow sensing properties of the sensor were measured.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.31 no.10
• /
• pp.876-883
• /
• 2007

Numerical simulations are conducted for the design of a micro thermal mass air flow sensor (MAFS), which consists of a microfabricated heater and thermopiles on the silicon-nitride ($Si_3N_4$) thin membrane structure. It is important to find the proper locations of these thermal elements in the design of MAFS with improved sensitivity. Three heating modes of the micro-heater are considered: constant temperature, constant power and heating pulses. The analyses are focused on the membrane temperature profile near the sensing section. Considered are the practical flow velocities, ranging from 3 m/s to 35 m/s, and the corresponding Reynolds numbers from 1000 to 10000. The results show that one of optimum sensing locations is about $100{\mu}m$ away from the microheater. It is concluded that the heating mode and configurations of thermal elements are the main factors for the MAFS with higher sensitivity.

• Progress in Superconductivity
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.41-45
• /
• 2010

Low temperature micro-calorimeters have been employed in the field of high resolution alpha spectrometers. These alpha detectors typically consist of a superconducting or metal absorber and a temperature sensor. The temperature sensor can be a transition edge sensor (TES), a metallic magnetic calorimeter (MMC) or other low temperature detectors for an accurate measurement of temperature change due to an alpha particle absorption. We report a recent study of the heat flow between a replaceable absorber and a temperature sensor. A piece of gold foil in $2.4{\times}2.7{\times}0.03\;mm^3$ is used as an absorber. A $40\;{\mu}m$ diameter Au:Er paramagnetic sensor is attached to another small piece of gold foil in $400{\times}200{\times}30\;{\mu}m^3$ to serve as the temperature sensor. This sensor assembly, Au:Er and gold foil, is placed on a miniature SQUID susceptometer in a gradiometric configuration. The thermal connection between the absorber and the sensor was made with three gold bonding wires. The measured thermal conductance shows a linear dependence to the temperature. The values are in a good agreement with Wiedemann-Franz type thermal conductance of the gold wires.