TI’s application note on Ultrasonic sensing for water flow meters and heat meters (PDF!)
Ultrasonic flow meters are gaining wide usage in commercial, industrial and medical applications. Major benefits of utilizing this type of flowmeter are higher accuracy, low maintenance (no moving parts), noninvasive flow measurement, and the ability to regularly diagnose health of the meter. This application note is intended as an introduction to ultrasonic time-of-flight (TOF) flow sensing using the TDC1000 ultrasonic analog-front-end (AFE) and the TDC7200 picosecond accurate stopwatch. Information regarding a typical off-the-shelf ultrasonic flow sensor is provided, along with related equations for calculation of flow velocity and flow rate. Included in the appendix is a summary of standards for water meters and a list of low cost sensors suitable for this application space.
