Clamping-on for cleanliness

01 June 2007

An essential ingredient for pharmaceutical companies is vast quantities of pure water so it is important for these businesses to eliminate bacterial growth in their supply.

Buckinghamshire based Micronics advises that a sanitary supply can be created by removing crevices, that provide a breeding ground for bacteria, in the system and to use high quality stainless steel.

Therefore, for flow-metering applications, Micronics suggests the use of ultrasonic clamp-on meters and instruments. These do not enter through the pipe wall or protrude in any way into the ultra pure water environment. This reduces the cost of installing flow meters and eliminates the potential breeding ground for bacteria that in-line meters present.

The company’s clamp-on, non-invasive meters and portable instruments measure the flow of liquid within a pipeline through two sound transmitter/receivers clamped to the outside of the pipe wall. The sound is directed through the pipe wall into the flowing liquid where the speed of the sound wave is modulated by the flowing liquid. This modulation is converted into volume flow rate by the electronics in the flow meter. There are no mechanical moving parts required either inside or outside the pipe to make the measurement.

Furthermore an advantage of using a clamp-on flow meter in purified water applications is that they do not penetrate the liquid so they are not as expensive to manufacture as alternative in-line aseptic meters.

Micronics clamp-on flow meters and instruments have been applied in pharmaceutical plants around the world. The company said the meters “solve flow-metering problems by eliminating any possibility of contamination and at the same time save a great deal of expense.”


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