Study on the Transient Characteristics of the Sensor Tube of a Thermal Mass Flow Meter

열식 질량 유량계 센서관의 과도 특성에 관한 연구

Thermal mass flow meters (TMFMs) are most widely used for measuring mass flow rates in the semiconductor industry. A TMFM should have a short response time in order to measure the time-varying flow rate rapidly and accurately. Therefore it is important to study transient heat transfer phenomena in the sensor tube of a TMFM that is the most critical part in the TMFM. In the present work, a simple numerical model for transient heat transfer phenomena of the sensor tube of a TMFM is presented. Numerical solutions for the tube and fluid temperatures in a transient state are obtained using the proposed model and compared with experimental results to validate the proposed model. Based on numerical solutions, heat transfer mechanism in a transient state in the sensor tube is explained. Finally, a correlation for predicting the response time of a sensor tube is presented. The correlation is verified by experimental results.