How Can Non-Invasive Flow Measurement Help the Pharmaceutical Manufacturer?

Pharmaceutical manufacture presents some of the most difficult challenges for process instrumentation. Clamp-on ultrasonic flowmeters provide the perfect solution.

There are all the usual requirements – flow, level, temperature etc, but often with low flow rates and ultra-pure materials and always with the absolute requirement for hygienic, sterile and sanitary conditions. So, challenged with flow measurement within a pipe, particularly an existing pipe, how does the site engineer respond?

As the purity of the fluid increases, the conductivity often decreases, so technologies such as electromagnetic flow metering will not always work. Then there is the interruption to production and the difficulties of re-establishing the sterile conditions required to re-commence operations. Invasive flow measurement instruments can even provide sites for microbial and algal growth to flourish. Non-invasive, clamp on flow measurement using ultrasonic techniques provides a method to measure reliably and repeatably without interrupting the process and without compromising the sterility of the pipe.

Clamp-on, non-invasive ultrasonic flowmeters are clean, easy to install and use, and versatile. The rise of the distributed factory made possible by Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies, the increased demands of continuous over batch production and the drive to reduce product returns in a high-value environment such as pharmaceuticals means that reliable process measurement that can be easily incorporated into an existing process is becoming more and more essential. The clamp-on flowmeter is set to be an important part of that growth.