Ionix HPZ enables gas flow metering at temperatures exceeding 400°C, utilising the same cabling technology, electronics, and software, significantly extending market reach for OEM manufacturers of flow systems. With plug-and-play compatibility for PZT, Ionix HPZ maintains the same physics and physical form as PZT, ensuring seamless integration. This allows OEMs to easily adopt Ionix HPZ without needing to alter their existing systems.
Integrating Ionix’s HotSense flare gas transducers provided frequent, consistent, and high-quality methane gas velocity data across a wide temperature range (-200 to +400 °C), enabling our partner to expand market penetration into chemical processing and refining. By using our HotSense ultrasonic technology, our partner achieved rapid market entry without significant in-house product development costs, launching a product within eight months. HotSense, a certified intrinsically safe ultrasonic platform, optimised system certification for safe, easy integration into existing electronics, and ensured worldwide operation, delivering accuracy better than ±1% with a high turn-down ratio.
Ionix’s flow meter OEM expands product offering to target high-value, low-competition, high-temperature flow metering applications with our HPZ piezoceramic-powered HotSense™ ultrasonic platform. This initiative includes the accelerated development and production of clamp-on ultrasonic transducers, reducing the product development cycle by threefold. A flow OEM partner outsourced production to Ionix to utilise our high-temperature assembly expertise, economies of scale, and adherence to ISO 9001 and ATEX/IECEx quality standards.
Ionix HotSense was used to provide frequent, high-quality wall thickness trends, ensuring the customer knows the hopper’s condition and remaining life. Wall loss trends help predict and schedule maintenance, reducing outages and maximizing production. Changes in wall loss rates can adjust maintenance frequency as needed. The system is installed outside the hopper, increasing safety by reducing personnel exposure to hazards like working from heights and rope access.
Ionix delivered a steam flow Lamb wave transducer operating at up to 220°C (15 barg), ensuring high accuracy and compact size. The technique accurately measures flow speed in up to 90% dry steam, saving their partner development time and costs, and accelerating market entry. This advanced technology enhances efficiency, reduces costs, and provides a competitive edge.
This technical note explores the suitability of Ionix’s HotSense platform for acoustic emission ( AE ) transducers for such applications, without the need for waveguides or IEPE electronics due to its high sensitivity across a wide temperature range, by the application of a standard pencil break test conducted at 350 °C. The outcomes demonstrate that the HotSense AE transducer exhibits outstanding sensitivity at this temperature, maintaining a performance level similar to that at room temperature.
Significant corrosion can occur in stacks and flares due to the presence of acidic compounds in the gases, in the presence of moisture and at elevated temperatures.
A refinery operator sought to inspect their stacks, onstream at high-temperatures using aerial drone platform with a HotSense UT payload to determine fitness for service.
Read our latest case study that highlights why on-stream inspection requires robust transducers with high sensitivity and temperature resilience , and which can reliably make high-temperature wall thickness measurements to prevent the need for shutdown and maintain productivity while reducing costs.