Application of the energy balance principle to liquid low-velocity measurement

The motivation behind designing an accurate low-velocity flow meter lies in the fact that low-flow conditions occur in many industrial applications such as nuclear reactors during decay heat removal, heat exchangers, and solar heating systems. Thermal anemometers represent the most commonly used devices for low-flow measurements, but they suffer from the effects of buoyancy enhancement at low velocities. Thus, the readings made at low-flow conditions are erroneous since the lower density near the heated sensor leads to a measured velocity, which exceeds the unperturbed fluid velocity. Furthermore, a single wire anemometer is incapable of indicating the flow direction. The current effort focuses on designing an anemometer that enables us to account for buoyancy enhancement and exhibits some directional discrimination