Egyptian District Metered Area feature Katronic flowmeters for network leakage management

Flowmeters integrated into telemetry system enable remote inspection, predictive maintenance and detect water losses.

Supplied along with a range of other instrumentation by their Egyptian partner Astronic, Katronic’s non-invasive, clamp-on ultrasonic flowmeters are providing key flow data for Cairo Water District Metered Area (DMA) projects. Astronic build Katronic KATflow 100 and KATflow 150 flowmeters into telemetry panels of their own design that deliver key data to monitor and control the local water networks improving supply and reducing leakage.

Investment in Egypt’s water system goes toward redressing some of the problems of supply in that country. A combination of ageing infrastructure, agriculture requirements and uncontrolled building in some areas has led to leakage and wastage of over 30 % of potable water by many estimates. Astronic has become a leading supplier to the Egyptian water and wastewater industries, developing a portfolio of products designed to meet some of the many needs of the sector including telemetry and data visualisation systems for DMA applications, where pressure and flow measurement and control is critical for leakage control.

Katronic flowmeters include compact transducers that simply clamp onto the outside of a filled water pipe using a transit-time approach to measure flow. Katronic’s modular instrument design also means that the flowmeter can be specified with only the outputs required by the telemetry saving costs. In this case the requirement was for a simple 4 to 20 mA active output. A DC powered meter was selected and the panel operates with solar power. For the user the benefits of a remote telemetry system including flow instrument output include visualisation of the data across the network, remote inspection, predictive maintenance and minimising of site visits.

Astronic demonstrated the Katronic flowmeter in their self-designed telemetry panel at the Marsa Matrouh water and wastewater company. The success of the application has led to the implementation of Astronic panels featuring Katronic flowmeters in other plants within the Cairo Water network, notably in the Mokattam and Zamalek suburbs, as well as for other Egyptian applications in Sinai, Qalyubia and Marsa Matrouh.