Texas Instruments Corporation

Michael Weitz

Matthieu Chevrier

Elements of a single beam-forming array of ultrasonic transducer elements are selectively activated to direct two or more ultrasonic beams to a series of acoustic mirrors mounted to or fabricated at known locations at an inside surface of the pipe. The ultrasonic beams traverse measurement path segments at known angles through a fluid flowing through the pipe before being received back at the single transducer array. Fluid flow velocity along the fluid flow path is calculated as a function of a difference in time-of-flight (TOF) along first and second ultrasonic beam paths after subtracting TOF components contributed by known-length non-measurement path segments. The difference in TOF results from an additive downstream fluid flow velocity vector component along a first measurement path segment and a subtractive upstream fluid flow velocity vector component along a second measurement path segment.

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Wangen, Germany

Michael Weitz