Development of a sensor to measure velocity in high temperature liquid metals

This paper will describe the development of a sensor to measure localized velocity in high temperature liquid metals. This sensor utilizes a sphere which is immersed in a moving liquid metal. By measuring the melting time of sphere, the liquid metal velocity can be inferred. The elementals for the development of this sensor were carried out in a commercial purity aluminum bath and in liquid low carbon steel. In developing the sensor, we investigated a range of bath temperatures, as well as the impact of different sphere diameters. Results showed that the sphere melting time was related linearly to the magnitude of flow velocity for the range of velocities of 0-40 cm/sec and for bath superheats up to 100 degreesC. How this sensor can be adapted to be used in other high temperature reactive liquid metals and liquid slags will be shown. In addition, a modification of this technique to detect direction of velocity in these high temperature hostile fluids will be described.