Ultrasonic flow meter

Projects General Guidance
1

how can i make an ultrasonic flow metre using arduino uno and hc sr04 sensor

2

What should it measure? The speed of a fluid in a pipe ( in this case I think you need more than 'an arduino uno and an sr04' )?

3

There is an old saying do not put the cart before the horse. In your case you are doing about the same thing, it appears you have the parts looking for a project.

Hint: Sound travels at a different rate through different media. Environmental impact on the sensor is critical. the SR04s do not like liquids.

4
  • bicycle wheel with paddles on the rim.
  • water hits the paddles to spin the wheel.
  • when HC-SR04 sees "target" at < 400cm, 1 revolution has occurred.
  • given: (distance) circumference at paddles and (time) for one revolution
  • calculate speed

wheel

5

the flow rate in the pipe

6

Anything more you omitted?

7

noo

8

can the hc sr04 penetrate through a pvc pipe ?

9

No. PVC makes a good target.

10

I think that the HC-SR04 will only tell you the distance to the pipe.

The HC-SR04 has transmit and receive transducers facing in the same direction.
For an ultrasonic flow meter you would want the transducers facing each other.

The HC-SR04 has an IC specifically programmed to emit a burst of ultrasonic and measure the time until a reflection is received.

To make an ultrasonic flow meter, you need to transmit an ultrasonic signal at a known frequency, and measure the frequency difference between the transmitted and received frequency.

1 Like
11

so what should i do ?

12

Just accept that there is no way of measuring flow inside a pipe with your hardware.
Even ready made sonic flow sensors from aliexpress are mainly crap. More suitable to detect flow than reliably measure it.

13

so what kind of hardware do i need in order to make it work explain it in detail please

14

Liquid or Gas flow?

15

liquid

16

I personally can't recommend anything but what you want is a clamp on flow meter

17

The $8k Arduino project. I wonder if that device needs a filled pipe, and not just a half-filled trickle.

18

the ultrasonic frequency used in hc sr04 id of 40khz what is the frequency which is used in commerically available clamp on flow meters also can you please send me link of article with which i can learn exactly how can we design an ultrasonic sensor as that of in the commercially available flow meters
Thanks a lot everyone

19

This should get you started

20

Like I wrote earlier, many of commercially available meters perform poorly.
It's not the easiest project to start with.
Good luck anyway!