Patent ID: 7523005

Claim:
A method for determining a mass flow through a pipe, which method comprises the steps of: exerting a force and/or moment on at least one location on the pipe, such that vibrations of several vibration modes are excited in which the pipe exhibits deflections transverse to a direction of flow; determining a magnitude of the force and/or moment with which the pipe is excited; measuring responses of the pipe at multiple locations between two clamping points of the pipe, at excitations with several different frequencies while a mass flow assumed to be unknown flows through the pipe; implicitly or explicitly calculating a sensitivity of the response to the mass flow on the-basis of a model which comprises as free parameters the mass flow and in process estimated model parameters which determine the sensitivity, wherein the model parameters are estimated that correspond with the combination of the force and/or the moment and the responses measured for the different frequencies and an estimated mass flow of the model is adjusted to the force and/or moment and measured responses.