Hi all,
I have an application where I have to measure air flow through a HVAC duct, as we have to ultimately maintain a certain rate of air "changes" in a room of known volume in a given time (e.g. the room is say 20m3, and we have to completely replace the air in the room at a constant rate of once per hour, so we need to maintain an air flow rate of 20m3/hr). I've not used air flow sensor before so I'm delving into this world for the first time, and most of the options I'm finding are air velocity sensors.
Some googling tells me that this is generally the way air flow is measured - by measuring the air velocity and calculating the flow. Velocity multiplied by cross-sectional duct area equals air flow. That seems straightforward enough, but I'm just curious about the range of different options for air velocity sensors. There are sensor like this one that basically become part of the duct, and then others like this one that just stick a small probe into an existing duct. I'm assuming that the first option which becomes part of the duct and contains multiple sampling points across the duct would give me a more accurate reading than the single-point measurement of the second probe, but how much difference are we talking about? Does anyone have any hands-on experience in this field to offer?
I have an application where I have to measure air flow through a HVAC duct, as we have to ultimately maintain a certain rate of air "changes" in a room of known volume in a given time (e.g. the room is say 20m3, and we have to completely replace the air in the room at a constant rate of once per hour, so we need to maintain an air flow rate of 20m3/hr). I've not used air flow sensor before so I'm delving into this world for the first time, and most of the options I'm finding are air velocity sensors.
Some googling tells me that this is generally the way air flow is measured - by measuring the air velocity and calculating the flow. Velocity multiplied by cross-sectional duct area equals air flow. That seems straightforward enough, but I'm just curious about the range of different options for air velocity sensors. There are sensor like this one that basically become part of the duct, and then others like this one that just stick a small probe into an existing duct. I'm assuming that the first option which becomes part of the duct and contains multiple sampling points across the duct would give me a more accurate reading than the single-point measurement of the second probe, but how much difference are we talking about? Does anyone have any hands-on experience in this field to offer?