A flow meter is a meter for the measured flow rate and/or the total amount of fluid at a selected time interval. In simple terms, it is a meter used to measure the flow of fluid in a pipe or open channel. As one of the important instruments in industrial measurement, flow meters can be widely used in oil and gas, petrochemical, water treatment, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, energy, metallurgy, pulp and paper, and building materials and other industries.
According to the actual situation and structural principle of the current flow meter products, the flow meter can be roughly divided into differential pressure flowmeter, orifice flowmeter, float flowmeter, volumetric flowmeter, sewage flowmeter, turbine flowmeter, vortex flowmeter (USF), electromagnetic flowmeter (EMF), ultrasonic flowmeter, mass flowmeter, etc.
According to the data, the global flow meter market size was $4.758 billion in 2016, and it is expected that by 2022, the global flow meter market size is expected to reach $6.065 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.13%.
The rapid growth of the flow meter market is mainly due to the global growth of the mining, petrochemical, refining, food industry, chemicals, and pharmaceutical industries. According to statistics, from 2007 to 2030, the world needs to invest a total of 26 trillion US dollars in energy equipment.
At the same time, oil, gas and power infrastructure will need to be replaced in many parts of the world by 2030. In the long run, the foreseeable energy investment will bring a lot of room for development to the application of flow meters in the oil and gas and energy industry sectors.
The rapid growth of the market will also promote the upgrading of products. Flowmeters such as electromagnetic flowmeters, Coriolis flowmeters, vortex flowmeters, and ultrasonic flowmeters can provide higher accuracy and lower maintenance costs than traditional flowmeters based on differential pressure technology and old-fashioned mechanical technology, and are likely to become mainstream technologies in the future and seize the market.
Although the growth of the energy market and the development of technology have opened a golden door for the development of flow meters. However, as far as the current domestic flow meter industry is concerned, there is still a lot of room for improvement.
In the global market, the famous manufacturers of flow meters mainly include Emerson, Endershaus, Cologne, Siemens, General Electric, etc., which have a long history of development and rich production experience, and occupy most of the market for flow meters. Among them, Emerson, Endershaus and ABB account for nearly 50% of the total market share.
In this market situation and competitive environment, on the one hand, domestic brands can only win the good reputation of domestic flow meter products by continuously improving product performance, improving manufacturing process and product quality, and further improving the adaptability, reliability, accuracy and range ratio of flow meters.
In order to improve the quality, China is also standardizing the quality of flowmeter products through the formulation and release of standards. In May 2018, the "Made in Zhejiang" group standard of "Electromagnetic Flowmeter" led by Zhejiang Metrology Science Research was officially approved. On January 1, 2019, the national standard "Gas Precession Vortex Flowmeter", drafted by Zhejiang Institute of Metrology, was officially implemented.
On the other hand, flow meter enterprises should also step up the research and development of core technology, cooperate with scientific research institutions, break through the core technology level of flow meters, further improve the intelligent level of flow meters, and make on-site operations closer to users and simpler, so as to meet the trend of future flow meter technology development.
Taking the gas flow meter as an example, due to the difficulty of detection and high technical requirements, the 0.2 gas flow measurement accuracy is recognized by the industry as a problem in mass flow detection technology, and only a few giant companies such as Emerson have been able to successfully break through. The long-term monopoly of foreign technology has left domestic companies with no choice when purchasing related products.
However, in June 2018, the RD015 Coriolis mass flowmeter developed by Chengdu Ruifan Zhida Technology Co., Ltd. broke the monopoly of foreign brands in one fell swoop, filled the gap, and at the same time achieved rapid growth in the gas flowmeter market.
Time does not wait, for domestic flow meter enterprises, only by seizing the opportunity of historical development and constantly enhancing their own strength, can they further promote their own development and occupy a place in the market.