Bi-directional flow sensor with a wide dynamic range for medical applications.

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a novel three-wire thermal flow sensor for medical applications. The present innovation for low-frequency measurements involves the use of a pulsed-wire anemometer with a comparatively large wire diameter (12.5 microm and larger) together with a novel signal processing approach. A small wire is heated using a sinusoidal alternating current, and two sensing wires, acting as resistance thermometers, are set parallel to, and at a small distance on either side of, the pulsed wire. The thermal wake of the pulsed wire is convected downstream to one of the two receiving wires which detect its delayed arrival. This arrangement allows the sensing of both the direction and the flow velocity component normal to the three probes. By appropriate signal processing, the present sensor can be operated such that the phase shift between the periodic current that drives the central wire and the detected signal by either the upstream or downstream wire takes into account a combination of convection, diffusion and the finite thermal response time of both the pulsed wire and the receiving wire. Because the time constants increase as the flow velocity decreases, the time lag due to thermal inertia supplements the time lag due to the true time of flight, thus yielding an effective operating range of 0.05 m/s magnitude larger than that for the traditional time-of-flight pulsed-wire anemometers. An important application of the bi-directional thermal flowmeter is the measurement of human respiration, e.g. for early diagnostics of asthmatic attacks. The main advantage of the present sensor is its low sensitivity to variations in temperature and also to the composition of the flowing gas. Also, a calibration will be not needed for each density and gas used in addition to that for velocity. The resultant design work aimed at developing a sensor that can be mass-produced at low cost.