You get the high accuracy and low permanent pressure loss, so it makes an ideal custody transfer meter. Orifices have been used in the past, but they tend to go with high-end turbines and things that are much more complex. They do a lot of ultrasonics and a lot of vortex shutters. Those devices, you’re talking $30,000 to $80,000 a piece, to be able to go into custody transfer, whereas in one of these plates, you’re probably talking about $3,000 or $4,000 with comparable accuracy.

So you put these in the gas pipelines, you put them in the oil pipelines, and you use them as custody transfer meters to make sure that the right amounts of fuels are going to the right places, and that you really verify and now how to bill across the US, and also to detect leaks in the system.

NTB: Of what is it made?

Kelley: It can be made out of anything. Anything that makes your pipe system. If you have a really erosive acid that is going to eat away metal, and you are using plastic, we can build it out of special plastic. Any fluid, any type of system — there is really no limit. The only limitation is whether nor not you have pressure transducers and temperature transducers that can survive the environment. Most places have worked those problems and have such devices that work in their systems. So we can make it out of steel, we can make it out of aluminum, we can make it out of stainless, we can make it out of ceramic, we can make it out of plastic, PVC — we’ve made it out of five different materials already. Materials really aren’t that big a deal.

NTB: It is in use right now?

Kelley: It is being used right now. There are several oil companies that are using it, and they are very pleased with the results. The largest one we’ve put in the field is 22 inches, and so, for a 22-inch steel pipe, that’s a pretty big flow rate. There is no limit on the upper end; we’ve got probably on the order of 80 to 100 plates in commercial industry right now that are being used in different places. And they are being used in liquid flows, gas flows, some slurries, even. We’re able to operate in some slurry flow, which is a multi-phase flow problem, and we’re able to get some pretty good results out of that.

To give you an idea of the accuracies we’re talking about, at 0.2% or so, you’re talking about a fraction of a teaspoon out of a gallon. So you’re talking literally about a few drops out of a gallon, and that’s what you have to have for custody transfer. If the gas pump meter that you use to pump your fuel is wrong, that, for you, may only add up to a couple of cents, but when several thousand of customers come through there, it adds up to be several hundreds of thousands of dollars. Multiply that across a huge gas industry and you’re talking about lots and lots of revenue that’s based on accuracy of custody transfer meters. So what we are after right now making this unit a custody transfer meter, and it’s well on its way to that.

The other place where we are getting some interest, some good application, are the shipping industries. There are several places where ships use large-scale flow meters and have to monitor their processes. And so there is a very good chance they’re going to be showing up on some shipping systems pretty soon.

As a standard, it’s based on the old orifice flow standard technology. I guarantee there is a standard orifice plate in every chemical plant; every plant that manufactures anything uses flow meters. Just about any of them will have an orifice plate flow meter that we could be a drop-in replacement for. And the nice thing is, they are here operating on that standard orifice, and they are getting somewhere between a half and 3% accuracy, usually closer to 3% on most applications. If they just come and change that plate and drop in our plate, they instantly drop their accuracy below 1%. And that makes a huge difference when you are mixing chemicals, mixing compounds in very exact ratios. It has a huge market potential.

For more information, contact Anthony Kelley at the Marshall Space Flight Center at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .