Experimental Investigation of Novel Liquid Flow Measurement by Using Thermoelectric Module

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents an experimental investigation of liquid flow measurement by using a thermoelectric module. The measuring principle is based on the Seebeck effect of the thermoelectric module and the energy balance of convective heat transfer between the liquid flow and the thermoelectric module during implementation. The experimental studies confirm the viability of the thermoelectric module in determining the flow rates of water. In experiments, the results show that the determined flow rates by using the thermoelectric module are close to the actual flow rates of water with a coefficient of determination R2 of 0.9965. In addition to the straightforward measuring principle, low-cost material, no limitation of fluid types as well as directions of flows in a pipe, and no requirement of electrical power source make the thermoelectric module noteworthy as a sensor material in developing liquid flow meters.