A flow sensor apparatus for monitoring a directed stream of an agricultural product from an application port of a supply tube. The directed stream has a target directed portion and an off-target portion. A sensor housing includes a conical flow receiving element and a sensor body. The receiving element has an inlet orifice at a first end and a receiving element outlet at a second end. The first end is smaller than the second end. The sensor body has a sensor inlet end positioned to receive a target directed portion of the directed stream from the receiving element outlet of the conical flow receiving element wherein an off-target portion of the directed stream is not sensed. The sensor housing and sensor element are positioned external to the application port and thus positioned to provide measurement, targeting, and timing of the agricultural product.

A microfluidic flow sensor may include a substrate having a microfluidic channel, a bubble generator to introduce a bubble into fluid that is directed through the microfluidic channel and a sensor element along the microfluidic channel and spaced from the bubble generator. The sensor element outputs a signal based upon a sensed passage of the bubble with respect to the sensor element. Portions of the microfluidic channel proximate the sensor element have a first size and wherein the bubble generated by the bubble generator is to have a second size greater than one half the first size.

An electric measurement method and apparatus for detecting a mass by an electric capacity (permittivity) or a material's dielectric constant, or alternatively, electric inductance (permeability). The mass may be any phase or combination of phases. The mass may be stationary or flowing. It may comprise discrete particles such as grain, or manufactured products such as ball bearings or threaded fasteners, etc. The mass may be a flow element in a rotameter or similar flow measurement device. The sensor comprises a volume which may be completely full or only partially full of the material. The material may be discrete components or a continuum. Sensor signals may be received by existing planter monitoring systems. In some embodiments the flow sensors are positioned external to the application port. In some embodiments sensors may be utilized which are responsive to the refractive index variation of specific chemicals.

An electric measurement method and apparatus for detecting a mass by an electric capacity (permittivity) or a material's dielectric constant, or alternatively, electric inductance (permeability). The mass may be any phase or combination of phases. The mass may be stationary or flowing. It may comprise discrete particles such as grain, or manufactured products such as ball bearings or threaded fasteners, etc. The mass may be a flow element in a rotameter or similar flow measurement device. The sensor comprises a volume which may be completely full or only partially full of the material. The material may be discrete components or a continuum. Sensor signals may be received by existing planter monitoring systems. In some embodiments the flow sensors are positioned external to the application port. In some embodiments sensors may be utilized which are responsive to the refractive index variation of specific chemicals.

Provided herein are improved methods for estimating the flow velocity of a fluid in a vessel. Systems and methods are provided herein related to making and/or refining velocity measurements for flowing fluids, both single and multi-phase fluids, in vessels, such as pipes or conduits, utilizing contrast media property agent variations. In one aspect, this disclosure provides a method of determining a flow velocity of a fluid flow in a vessel including: providing a fluid flow having contrast media, the contrast media having a contrast media property variation; providing a detectable signal corresponding to the contrast media property variation; collecting the detectable signal at an upstream receiver to produce a first received signal; collecting the detectable signal at a downstream receiver to produce a second received signal, the downstream receiver being located downstream of the upstream receiver at a distance (L); filtering the first received signal and the second received signal through a contrast media variant filter to produce a first filtered signal and a second filtered signal; cross-correlating the first filtered signal and the second filtered signal to determine a time shift (t) between the first filtered signal and the second filtered signal; and estimating the velocity of the fluid flow using this relationship vflow=L/t.

Provided herein are improved methods for estimating the flow velocity of a fluid in a vessel. Systems and methods are provided herein related to making and/or refining velocity measurements for flowing fluids, both single and multi-phase fluids, in vessels, such as pipes or conduits, utilizing contrast media property agent variations. In one aspect, this disclosure provides a method of determining a flow velocity of a fluid flow in a vessel including: providing a fluid flow having contrast media, the contrast media having a contrast media property variation; providing a detectable signal corresponding to the contrast media property variation; collecting the detectable signal at an upstream receiver to produce a first received signal; collecting the detectable signal at a downstream receiver to produce a second received signal, the downstream receiver being located downstream of the upstream receiver at a distance (L); filtering the first received signal and the second received signal through a contrast media variant filter to produce a first filtered signal and a second filtered signal; cross-correlating the first filtered signal and the second filtered signal to determine a time shift (t) between the first filtered signal and the second filtered signal; and estimating the velocity of the fluid flow using this relationship vflow=L/t.

An electric measurement method and apparatus for detecting a mass by an electric capacity (permittivity) or a material's dielectric constant, or alternatively, electric inductance (permeability). The mass may be any phase or combination of phases. The mass may be stationary or flowing. It may comprise discrete particles such as grain, or manufactured products such as ball bearings or threaded fasteners, etc. The mass may be a flow element in a rotameter or similar flow measurement device. The sensor comprises a volume which may be completely full or only partially full of the material. The material may be discrete components or a continuum. Sensor signals may be received by existing planter monitoring systems. In some embodiments the flow sensors are positioned external to the application port. In some embodiments sensors may be utilized which are responsive to the refractive index variation of specific chemicals.

A flow monitoring system is described for monitoring flow of a mixed-phase sample comprising at least a first phase and a second phase having different electrical conductivities, the second phase being a liquid or a gas and substantially electrically non-conductive and the first phase being a liquid and having a conductivity higher than the second phase. The system comprises: a conduit through which the mixed-phase sample can be arranged to flow; tomography apparatus arranged to generate tomography data indicative of at least a first conductivity profile of at least a portion of a first cross section of the mixed phase sample when flowing through the conduit; a flow meter arranged to detect flow of the first phase though the conduit and provide a flow signal indicative of a flow velocity of the first phase; and processing means adapted to calculate, from said data, a fraction of said first cross section occupied by the first phase, and calculate, from said fraction and said flow signal, a volumetric flow rate of the first phase through the conduit.

An Automatic Pulse Tracer Velocimeter (APTV) including arc-type APTVs and cross-type APTVs along with a field station and a master station capable of wireless communication with a remote computing devices. The APTV measures flow velocity in a flowable medium by injecting a small amount of a conductive tracer solution into a water column. Following injection, a plurality of wire detector pairs positioned downstream of the injection point are programmed to continuously make conductivity measurements at pre-determined time intervals. A tracer curve of the conductivity measurements over time is created and used to obtain velocity measurements.

An apparatus, method and non-transitory computer readable medium method are described for identifying the phase fractions and flow-rate of a petroleum carrying pipeline with three-phase wavy-stratified flow. A set of semi-cylindrical electrodes are mounted on the internal surface of a pipe to monitor the total capacitance and resistance of the three-phase contents. The phase fractions are determined by relating the resistance and capacitance to the phase-angles associated with the interfaces between water, oil and gas phases of the mixture. To calculate the flow rate, measured capacitances from two sets of electrodes with known separation distance are cross-correlated to determine time delay. Communications circuitry transmits the measurements to a remote control center for monitoring. Calculated and measured results demonstrate close agreement. The percentage error exhibited by the proposed inclined capacitive plate technique is calculated and compared with published values.