Ultrasonic measurement of milk products flowing in stainless steel pipe

Abstract

We studied a measurement using UVP (Ultrasonic Velocity Profiler) for the milk products flowing in pipe line; here, whole milk, low-fat milk and water-coffee cream were employed as samples of the milk products. Those milk products all include fat as emulsion. Although the diameter of fat particles is much smaller than suitable size of UVP tracer particles, UVP can measure velocity in the whole milk in short distance; Sufficiently large number of fat particles in the milk, however, also cause strong attenuation of ultrasonic wave. Wedge-shape wave guide was thus designed to have sufficiently strong ultrasonic wave with considering measurement in thick stainless-steel pipes, where further strong attenuation is expected.