Pipe size, material, wall thickness, lining, fluid, and how much straight run you have. That is everything an application engineer needs to give you a real answer — including the answer that clamp-on is wrong for your line.
Because the answers decide whether the instrument will work, and we would rather find out now than after you have bought it.
The meter computes flow from velocity × area, and it takes the area from these numbers. Get them wrong and every reading is systematically wrong — confidently, to four decimal places. And cement-mortar-lined ductile iron with a delaminated liner has an air gap inside the pipe that no instrument can see through. It is the single most common reason a clamp-on meter fails, and it is entirely predictable in advance.
This is the question people forget and then regret. A Doppler meter goes dark when a line runs clear. A transit-time meter drops out when solids arrive. If your fluid swings, we need to know before we recommend anything.
10 diameters upstream, 5 down, 30 after a pump. Less than that and the flow profile has not recovered — and the meter will report a real velocity that is not representative of the pipe. It will look completely plausible.
It happens. Partially full pipes, very small bores, very low flows, single-path custody transfer. A meter that cannot deliver the number you need is not a sale — it is a return, and a customer who tells people the technology does not work.
Seztec USA · 12620 FM 1960 Rd W, Ste A4, Houston, Texas 77065
sales@seztec.com
