![]() ![]() The company’s software determines the optimal number, size, shape, and placement of the openings, depending on factors like flow rate, pipe diameter, temperature, and the substance being metered. The innovation QMC devised with the help of NASA engineers and funding was to replace the single hole with a carefully calculated series of holes. For example, they cause a drop in fluid pressure and often generate loud noise. There are many different types of flow-meter technology, and plates with a single hole in them had long been among these, but they have definite drawbacks. In 2001, Marshall and QMC entered into a cooperative Space Act Agreement to split the cost of creating a better solution. In researching artificial intelligence applications, though, the engineers concluded that, aside from any risks they introduced, the flow meters also weren’t nearly accurate enough to detect significant hardware failures. Among various tools and components needed to gather system health data for artificial intelligence programs was a meter to measure the flow of liquid oxygen in the Space Shuttle’s main engines.Įarlier Shuttle engines had included turbine-based liquid oxygen flow meters, but these were abandoned after one of their blades came off during testing and bounced into the propellant throttling valve, causing a fire that totaled both the engine and the test stand it was mounted on in one of the worst test accidents in NASA’s history. ![]() In the 1990s, Marshall Space Flight Center undertook research into using artificial intelligence to manage the health of propulsion systems and plant equipment, with the help of a company called Quality Monitoring and Control (QMC). This is a typical balanced flow meter assembly Graftel might supply for a nuclear plant, with a flow plate custom designed by A+ FlowTek and a manifold integrated by Graftel. Thanks to a relatively recent partnership, nuclear energy has become the latest industry to begin reaping the benefits that accompany these custom-engineered, perforated discs. The simplicity, which lends itself to a low price tag and high durability, is part of the balanced flow meter’s charm ( Spinoff 2004, 2012), but this is only the start of its list of selling points. The plates usually sport a large central hole surrounded by perhaps five or six smaller ones, although there may be anywhere from 2 to 200 openings.īut these deceptively simple devices have won awards and saved millions-possibly billions-of dollars across a gamut of industries. The technology looks unassuming enough: circular metal plates with multiple holes in them. ![]()
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