Air Flow Meter

Have you ever come across something called an Air Flow Meter (which are also commonly abbreviated AFM), but don’t quite know what they are, what they do, how they function or, why not. You don’t even know what one such device looks like? Well you are about to find out in no time.

They are also known as air consumption meter and are, in fact, devices that measure how much air is flowing through a tube. And by that flow measurement we mean the actual speed of the air that is flowing through the device at a specific moment in time. So we can say that an air flow meter is simply an application of mass flow meter for a special environment. If you wonder how can you express the mass air flow measurements, know that they are usually expressed in units of kilograms per hour (kg/h). Also for the purpose of flow measurement, you can use differential pressure.

There are several types of air flow meters and some are used in automobiles to measure the quantity of air that goes into the internal combustion engine. Typically used for electronically controlled diesel engines when it comes to automobiles, the air flow meters are the only possible solution for determining the air intake for them.

And because we mentioned that there are several types of AFM, we would like to say a few words about one of them, that being the vane (or flap) type. This AFM measures air volume. It includes a spring which has the purpose of returning the internal flap to its initial position. There can be cases when that spring is too tight, which can cause restrictions for the incoming air, making the intake air speed increase if not fully opened.

Another application of mass flow meter could be the water meters or water flow meters. These water flow meters (or water meters as some might call them) are devices such as AFM, but used to measure the volume of water usage. They are usually used (in some developed countries) at each residential or commercial building in a public water supply system. They can also be found in some water sources, such as wells or a water system, and they determine the flow through that part of the system. Their measure is typically expressed in cubic feet, cubic meters or US gallons.


UFM develops and manufactures various flow meter technologies. Products include air flow meters, water flowmeter, ultrasonic flow meter, and many more flow measurement meters. Please visit http://www.flowmeters.com/ for more details.