Patent ID: 11781897

Abstract:
The invention is embodied by a system that employs an inline metering station for (a) measuring both pressure flow and free surface flow in underground conduits without having to physically contact the fluid in the conduit, (b) operating under laminar flow and turbulent flow conditions, (c) providing continuous flow measurement, (d) offering remote data transmission to central control room or mobile device for real-time accessibility (e) detecting line sedimentary deposits (f), making computational adjustments, and (g) alerting maintenance for cleaning. In addition, embodiments of this invention are not disrupted by sewer pipe cleaning and are not limited by sewer flow velocity, depth, or Froude number.The preferred system comprises a pair of risers (or “tubes”) mounted on top of a buried underground conduit. On top of each riser is a sensor for measuring the distance between the sensor and the surface of the fluid that is flowing below the sensor (the “sensor-fluid distance”). Using as-built conditions, the sensor-fluid distance can be used to find real-time flow depth and velocity through the underground conduit.