[labnetwork] Flow Meters and/or Flow Computers for tracking distributed nitrogen usage?

[Dave King]

John,

We have exactly the same situation at RPI, but we have been unable to find a
good solution.  The meters that we tried were not accurate.  (I don't recall
the brand name offhand, but I can get that info if you need it.)  We even
had one that would "count" when it was sitting on a desk, not connected to
anything!  

In addition, people felt that requiring each lab to pay for the installation
of a meter was just one more barrier to getting them to use the centralized
distribution system instead of having cylinders delivered to their lab.  And
then there's the overhead involved in generating bills for each lab each
month.

Conservation is certainly a good thing, but we feel that the primary factor
affecting our LN2 consumption is our liquid use, not our gas use.  Even with
other labs in the building connected to the system, at an expansion factor
of 700:1, it takes an awful lot of gas usage to make a dent in our 6,000
gallon bulk tank.

>From a financial standpoint, you might be better off trying to get someone
at the proper level (Dean, Provost, VP) to recognize the nitrogen system as
part of the building infrastructure and agree to subsidize part of the
annual LN2 cost out of overhead funds.  This doesn't help with conservation,
but it would take the financial burden off your facility (and prevent
auditors from asking why funding coming to your lab is being used to support
activities elsewhere).

Dave King


-----Original Message-----
From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu]
On Behalf Of John Shott
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 4:52 PM
To: Labnetwork
Subject: [labnetwork] Flow Meters and/or Flow Computers for tracking
distributed nitrogen usage?

Labnetwork:

Like many facilities, I suspect, we have a single LN2 tank that is used 
for delivery of gaseous nitrogen to the entire building.  While our 
shared laboratory is undoubtedly the largest user of that nitrogen, 
there are also a number of private labs in the building that consume 
nitrogen.  Because they do not pay for it, however, they have little 
incentive to conserve nitrogen.  Additionally, because we don't have 
great metering of our own nitrogen usage, we probably use more than we 
should in our facility.

Do any of you have experience with either totalizing flow meters and/or 
flow computers that can be used for tracking nitrogen flow and usage at 
15 or 20 distributed points that end up communicating to a central data 
collection point?

Any experience with systems of this type would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

John




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