Bookmark and Share 1 February 2002  A complex flow
instrumentation market  Desire for accuracy and reliability
drive users to new-technology flowmeters  By Jesse Yoder  There
are 10 main technologies used to measure flow. Suppliers find
themselves competing with other companies making the same type
of flowmeter and with suppliers making different types of
flowmeters. Thus, the flowmeter market has a built-in complexity
that some other instrumentation markets lack.  While technology
distinguishes flowmeters, so does the modernity of that
technology. New-technology flowmeters include those using
Coriolis, magnetic, ultrasonic, vortex, and multivariable
differential pressure (dP) technologies.  Coriolis: Micro Motion
introduced the first commercially successful Coriolis flowmeters
in 1977. Coriolis flowmeters use one or more vibrating tubes,
usually bent. The fluid passes through the vibrating tubes. The
fluid accelerates as it passes toward the point of maximum
vibration and decelerates as it leaves this point.