An established tree farm is utilizing a system to deliver chemicals for the purpose of feeding trees. To maintain the system, chemicals are also blended to flush or clean out the equipment. It is critical to accurately measure the amount of fertilizer in use during growing season for proper nutrient delivery and health of the trees. It is just as important to measure the amount of chlorine in use to keep the filter/drip nozzles clean from filamentous algae (this comes from pulling water from a pond).
The risk: There is the potential of harming or even killing the trees if too much chlorine, used in backwashing the system, is dispensed. Dosing the correct amount is crucial to keeping the system clean and operating, and in maintaining healthy trees.
Meter Requirements:
Product Specifications
The FLOMEC AQUAsonic with 4-20mA/Scalable pulse output was designed for this dosing application. When you pair our AQUAsonic 4-20mA with a dosing controller, we can measure the amount of water moving through the main line so the controller can release the right amount of chemicals. Ultrasonic responds very quickly to the change in flow, which will keep the dosing controller dosing the correct amount of chemicals for application.
Benefits of adding the meter to this process included:
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Great Plains Industries (GPI) has revealed that its FLOMEC® QS200 Insertion Ultrasonic Flowmeter helped save the University of Tennessee significant water and landscape maintenance costs.
The QS200 is designed to support commercial irrigation applications and measures flow rates five times lower than current flow sensors on the market, as low as 0.22 gallons per minute. Additionally, it provides extended leak detection down to 0.1 feet per second.
"Entities that rely on commercial irrigation – whether it's a business, municipality or, in this case, an educational institution – are under more pressure than ever to control their water usage and costs," said Mark Bieberle, meter product manager at GPI.
"System leaks that once were considered small are no longer acceptable. The problem is that traditional mechanical impeller meters often can't read the low flows required in many irrigation applications. This limits their ability to find those small leaks that add up to big water losses over time. We engineered the ultrasonic FLOMEC® QS200 precisely to solve that problem."
The University of Tennessee is one of the largest turf research schools in the US. Its Landscape Services department is responsible for the landscape maintenance and upkeep of 780 acres of space on the university’s main and agricultural campuses, as well as an addition 200 acres at its Cherokee Farms site.
The university uses both drip irrigation and standard spray lines; however, seeping valves were creating mud holes throughout the campus, causing damage to landscaping and a potential hazard for students and faculty. The leaks were also causing water to run over pavements and into parking lots.
The 1-inch impeller flowmeters on the drip irrigation lines, however, were showing no readings, which made it challenging to pinpoint the leaking valves. It was also suspected that flow readings on the standard spray lines were being missed, and the university had to replace units as they seized up.
Mechanical impeller meters must see a minimum flow rate such that the impeller will overcome friction and start moving to sense any flow. They are often unable to read the low flows typical of many commercial irrigation applications, which limits their ability to find leaking valves or other irrigation system leaks.
As the FLOMEC® QS200 has no moving parts, there is no mechanical friction, which allows it to measure much lower flows than mechanical impeller meters.
GPI’s solution has helped the University of Tennessee prevent problems with seepage and runoff, resulting in lower costs in repairing these areas. The new flowmeters notify the university if too much water is flowing.
The university now uses the QS200 on 50% of its drip irrigation lines and 50% of its standard spray lines, with plans to retrofit more in the future.
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With its low flow capability and extended leak detection down to 0.1fps, the QS200 uncovered an irrigation system leak previously undetected by a nutating disc utility meter
Quail Hills is a sub-division of the City of Irvine, California. Irvine is a master-planned city in Orange County, California, which is part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The 66-square-mile city has a population of 276,000. All streets have landscaping allowances. Rights-of-way for power lines also serve as bicycle corridors, parks and greenbelts to tie together ecological preserves. The city irrigates the greenery with reclaimed water. As with every municipality in California, saving water is a critical part of the city's budget.
The Irrigation Field Supervisor at Villa Park Landscape was overseeing a retrofit replacement of a Data Industrial Impeller Flow Sensor with a QS200 Insertion Ultrasonic Flowmeter at the Quail Hills Commons Park in Irvine, California.
The team began by estimating the expected flow rate in the test zone by counting the number of sprinkler heads. For this zone, the estimated flow rate was 70 GPM. This was pretty close to the actual flow rate measured by the QS200 at 73.3 GPM. After the test, the master valve was shut off. However, the controller was displaying a flow rate of 0.3 GPM. This suggested a leak in the system, on the city side of the water line. The 2" utility water meter did not indicate any flow because this is below the threshold of its measurement capability.
The next step was to manually close the master valve to make sure it was not leaking. Upon doing this, the controller displayed a flow rate of 0 GPM. The obvious conclusion was that the master valve was leaking. This is not a rare occurrence and accounts for a lot of wasted water in commercial irrigation systems. In this case, 0.3 GPM translates to the following water volumes over time: 18 gallons every hour, 432 gallons over 24 hours, 12,960 gallons in a month, and 157,680 gallons over a one year. That's an enormous waste of water if undetected.
The QS200 is an ultrasonic flow meter with no moving parts. Because of this, there is no mechanical friction, allowing it to measure much lower flow rates than mechanical impeller meters. The impeller in these meters must see a minimum flow rate such that the impeller will overcome friction and start moving in order to sense flow. This minimum flow rate is usually well above 1 GPM in a 2" line.
This is just one example of how the QS200 can detect very small leaks that most mechanical meters are not able to detect. Detecting these small leaks can save a lot of water and money over time. In the case of the City of Irvine, it is estimated that discovering the leaking master valve and replacing it will save thousands of dollars a year in lost water costs.
]]>The City of Fontana, California (pop. 200,000) has many landscaped traffic islands and median strips. The city has suffered severe droughts in recent times, and the conservation of water and the maintenance of valuable trees and shrubs in public spaces has been a major concern. The annual water usage budget for the city is $250,000.
Many of the city's green areas on traffic islands use drip irrigation to water the plants and shrubs. City officials were monitoring the water usage via paddle wheel flow sensors attached to a remote alarm system. The paddle wheel flow sensors were ineffective because they were continually giving false positives—showing "no flow" when the flow was below the threshold of the sensor to actually sense.
Paddle wheel sensors have an impeller that requires enough flow velocity to overcome the friction of the wheel on the shaft to sense any flow. In low flow situations, like drip irrigation, paddle wheel sensors often cannot register low flow readings.
The ultrasonic QS200 flowmeter has no moving parts and requires much lower flow rates to register a reading. It "retrofits" into most leading irrigation systems.
The City installed the FLOMEC QS200 in a single installation with bubbler head for drip irrigation with flow below 3 GPM, retrofitting it in the existing housing. The low flow alarms were reset for the QS200 ultrasonic flow meters.
A low flow alarm from the QS200 occurred and was thought to be another false alarm, which had occurred previously with the paddle wheel sensors. When the alarm was investigated, however, it was found that there was a blockage in the nozzle and no water was reaching the meter or plants.
The ability of the meter to detect low flows, typical of bubbler head nozzles and drip line water velocities, saved the city the cost of replacing the greenery for the entire median strip—an expensive and difficult job when complicated with traffic flow. Savings were estimated by the City of Fontana Engineer in the thousands of dollars.
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