Conducting air flow measurements at radionuclide station RN76,Salchalet, USA
An air flow meter, is a device that measures air flow, i.e. how much air is flowing through a tube. It does not measure the volume of the air passing through the tube, it measures the mass of air flowing through the device per unit time. Thus air flow meters are simply an application of mass flow meters for a special medium. Typically, mass air flow measurements are expressed in the units of kilograms per second (kg/s).
Contents
- 1 In automobiles
- 1.1 Failures
- 1.2 Air flow meter for R&D of cars
- 1.3 Industrial environments
- 2 See also
- 3 References
In automobiles
An air flow meter is used in some automobiles to measure the quantity of air going into the internal combustion engine. All modern electronically controlled diesel engines use an air flow meter,[citation needed] as it is the only possible means of determining the air intake for them. In the case of a petrol engine, the electronic control unit (ECU) then calculates how much fuel is needed to inject into the cylinder ports. In the diesel engine, the ECU meters the fuel through the injectors into the engines cylinders during the compression stroke.
The vane (flap) type air flow meters (Bosch L-Jetronic and early Motronic EFI systems or Hitachi) actually measure air volume, whereas the later "hot wire" and "hot film" air mass meters measure the mass of air flow.
The flap type meter includes a spring which returns the internal flap to the initial position. Sometimes if the spring is tensioned too tightly, it can restrict the incoming air and it would cause the intake air speed to increase when not opened fully.
Differential pressure is also used for air flow measurement purposes.
Failures
Air flow meters may fail or wear out. When this happens, engine performance will often decrease significantly, engine emissions will be greatly increased, and usually the Malfunction Indicator Lamp (MIL) will illuminate. In most countries in Europe, and in places in the United States where emissions inspections are obligatory, a lit MIL is cause for a vehicle to fail the inspection. Some engines do not idle with an air flow meter failure.
Air flow meter for R&D of cars
In the development process of internal combustion engines with engine test stands, an air flow meter/air flow measuring unit is used for measuring the continuous gravimetric air consumption of combustion engines.
Industrial environments
Air flow meters monitor air (compressed, forced, or ambient) in many manufacturing processes. In many industries, preheated air (called "combustion air") is added to boiler fuel just before fuel ignition to ensure the proper ratio of fuel to air for an efficient flame. Pharmaceutical factories and coal pulverizers use forced air as a means to force particle movement or ensure a dry atmosphere. Air flow is also monitored in mining and nuclear environments to ensure the safety of people.
See also
- Anemometer
- List of sensors
- Mass flow sensor
- Category:Engines
- Category:Engine fuel system technology
- In-line flow meter
- Insertion flow meter
- Thermal mass flow meter
References
- Miata.net, Repair broken Air Flow Meter, by Zach Warner, 2 January, 2009
- Clarks garage, AFM shop manual, Air Flow Meter (AFM) Operation and Testing, 1998
- Auto shop 101, AFM sensor
- Spitzer, David W. (1990), Industrial Flow Measurement, ISBN 1-55617-243-5
Sensors
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Acoustic, sound, vibration |
- Geophone
- Hydrophone
- Microphone
- Seismometer
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Automotive, transportation |
- Air–fuel ratio meter
- Blind spot monitor
- Crankshaft position sensor
- Curb feeler
- Defect detector
- Engine coolant temperature sensor
- Hall effect sensor
- MAP sensor
- Mass flow sensor
- Omniview technology
- Oxygen sensor
- Parking sensors
- Radar gun
- Speed sensor
- Speedometer
- Throttle position sensor
- Tire-pressure monitoring system
- Torque sensor
- Transmission fluid temperature sensor
- Turbine speed sensor
- Variable reluctance sensor
- Vehicle speed sensor
- Water sensor
- Wheel speed sensor
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Chemical |
- Breathalyzer
- Carbon dioxide sensor
- Carbon monoxide detector
- Catalytic bead sensor
- Chemical field-effect transistor
- Electrochemical gas sensor
- Electrolyte–insulator–semiconductor sensor
- Electronic nose
- Fluorescent chloride sensors
- Holographic sensor
- Hydrocarbon dew point analyzer
- Hydrogen sensor
- Hydrogen sulfide sensor
- Infrared point sensor
- Ion selective electrode
- Microwave chemistry sensor
- Nitrogen oxide sensor
- Nondispersive infrared sensor
- Olfactometer
- Optode
- Oxygen sensor
- Pellistor
- pH glass electrode
- Potentiometric sensor
- Redox electrode
- Smoke detector
- Zinc oxide nanorod sensor
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Electric, magnetic, radio |
- Current sensor
- Electroscope
- Galvanometer
- Hall effect sensor
- Hall probe
- Magnetic anomaly detector
- Magnetometer
- MEMS magnetic field sensor
- Metal detector
- Planar Hall sensor
- Radio direction finder
- Test light
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Environment, weather,
moisture |
- Actinometer
- Bedwetting alarm
- Ceilometer
- Dew warning
- Electrochemical gas sensor
- Fish counter
- Frequency domain sensor
- Gas detector
- Hook gauge evaporimeter
- Humistor
- Hygrometer
- Leaf sensor
- Psychrometer
- Pyranometer
- Pyrgeometer
- Rain gauge
- Rain sensor
- SNOTEL
- Snow gauge
- Soil moisture sensor
- Stream gauge
- Tide gauge
- Weather radar
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Flow, fluid velocity |
- Air flow meter
- Anemometer
- Flow sensor
- Gas meter
- Mass flow sensor
- Water metering
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Ionising radiation,
subatomic particles |
- Bubble chamber
- Cloud chamber
- Geiger counter
- Neutron detection
- Particle detector
- Scintillation counter
- Scintillator
- Wire chamber
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Navigation instruments |
- Airspeed indicator
- Machmeter
- Altimeter
- Attitude indicator
- Depth gauge
- Fluxgate compass
- Gyroscope
- Inertial navigation system
- Inertial reference unit
- Magnetic compass
- MHD sensor
- Ring laser gyroscope
- Turn coordinator
- Variometer
- Vibrating structure gyroscope
- Yaw-rate sensor
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Position, angle,
displacement |
- Accelerometer
- Auxanometer
- Capacitive displacement sensor
- Capacitive sensing
- Gravimeter
- Inclinometer
- Integrated circuit piezoelectric sensor
- Laser rangefinder
- Laser surface velocimeter
- Lidar
- Linear encoder
- Linear variable differential transformer
- Liquid capacitive inclinometers
- Odometer
- Photoelectric sensor
- Piezoelectric accelerometer
- Position sensor
- Rate sensor
- Rotary encoder
- Rotary variable differential transformer
- Selsyn
- Sudden Motion Sensor
- Tachometer
- Tilt sensor
- Ultrasonic thickness gauge
- Variable reluctance sensor
- Velocity receiver
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Optical, light, imaging |
- Charge-coupled device
- Contact image sensor
- Electro-optical sensor
- Flame detector
- Infrared
- Kinetic inductance detector
- LED as light sensor
- Light-addressable potentiometric sensor
- Nichols radiometer
- Optical fiber
- Photodetector
- Photodiode
- Photoelectric sensor
- Photoionization detector
- Photomultiplier
- Photoresistor
- Photoswitch
- Phototransistor
- Phototube
- Position sensitive device
- Scintillometer
- Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor
- Single-photon avalanche diode
- Superconducting nanowire single-photon detector
- Transition edge sensor
- Tristimulus colorimeter
- Visible-light photon counter
- Wavefront sensor
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Pressure |
- Barograph
- Barometer
- Boost gauge
- Bourdon gauge
- Hot-filament ionization gauge
- Ionization gauge
- McLeod gauge
- Oscillating U-tube
- Permanent Downhole Gauge
- Piezometer
- Pirani gauge
- Pressure gauge
- Pressure sensor
- Tactile sensor
- Time pressure gauge
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Force, density, level |
- Bhangmeter
- Force gauge
- Hydrometer
- Level sensor
- Load cell
- Magnetic level gauge
- Nuclear density gauge
- Piezoelectric sensor
- Strain gauge
- Torque sensor
- Viscometer
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Thermal, heat,
temperature |
- Bimetallic strip
- Bolometer
- Calorimeter
- Exhaust gas temperature gauge
- Flame detection
- Gardon gauge
- Golay cell
- Heat flux sensor
- Infrared thermometer
- Microbolometer
- Microwave radiometer
- Net radiometer
- Quartz thermometer
- Resistance thermometer
- Silicon bandgap temperature sensor
- Special sensor microwave/imager
- Thermistor
- Thermocouple
- Thermometer
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Proximity, presence |
- Alarm sensor
- Doppler radar
- Motion detector
- Occupancy sensor
- Passive infrared sensor
- Proximity sensor
- Reed switch
- Stud finder
- Touch switch
- Triangulation sensor
- Wired glove
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Sensor technology |
- Active pixel sensor
- Back-illuminated sensor
- Biochip
- Biosensor
- Capacitance probe
- Carbon paste electrode
- Catadioptric sensor
- Digital sensors
- Displacement receiver
- Electromechanical film
- Electro-optical sensor
- Fabry–Pérot interferometer
- Fisheries acoustics
- Image sensor
- Image sensor format
- Inductive sensor
- Intelligent sensor
- Lab-on-a-chip
- Leaf sensor
- Machine vision
- Microelectromechanical systems
- Photoelasticity
- Quantum sensor
- Radar
- Ground-penetrating radar
- Synthetic aperture radar
- Radar tracker
- Sensor array
- Sensor fusion
- Sensor grid
- Sensor node
- Soft sensor
- Sonar
- Staring array
- Transducer
- Ultrasonic sensor
- Video sensor technology
- Visual sensor network
- Wheatstone bridge
- Wireless sensor network
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Related |
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