Flow Measurement for Fishing Ports

Flow monitoring for influent and effluent of fish processing site.

Fish processing activities are subject to monitoring and possible enforcement action to ensure that they meet emission standards and environmental objectives for good ecological and chemical status. A seafood processing plant near the Cat Lo Fishing port required instrumentation to not only monitor the influent of their processing plant to see how much water was coming in but also the effluent so they could monitor their discharge rate to ensure everything was running smoothly.

Influent at seafood process plants tends to be on the dirtier side, with more particulates, suspended solids, and turbulence which is the ideal application for the DFM 6.1 Doppler Flow Meter. The clamp-on flow meter is mounted on the outside of any pipe 12.7 mm (0.5 in) or larger. Using doppler technology to measure velocity, an acoustic signal is reflected to the sensor from the moving particles or gas bubbles suspended in the fluid, then the flow is calculated based on the configured pipe inside diameter.

Once the water has been distributed around the process plant, the effluent that leaves the plant must be monitored. For this application, as the water had been treated and was relatively clean, the Ultra 4 and dBMACH3 were selected. The dBMACH3 is the first ultrasonic sensor to achieve a zero-effective blanking distance and is an ideal alternative open-channel flow sensor. Combined with the Ultra 4 controller from Pulsar Measurement, it provides a local reading of flow rates and on-screen trend analysis.

After the installation of both the DFM 6.1 and Ultra 4 with the dBMACH3, both systems performed very well, and the plant owner will compare the influent and effluent flow rates to gauge the plant's performance and efficiency.