Sumudu invents realtime viscosity meter

Ramani Kangaraarachchi

The Uva Wellassa University (UWU) is the first ever entrepreneurial university in Sri Lanka. It fulfills the requirement of producing undergraduates with entrepreneurial skills much needed for the country. Daily News Business highlighted its importance recently.

This is the second of a series of articles based on final year student research reports on value addition which will be useful for industrialists as well as readers. The objective of this series is to encourage and introduce country’s future entrepreneurs, to make the industrialists and other relevant parties aware of potential businesses.

Interested parties can contact the University for more details.

Background

P. Sumudu Dileepa Dayarathne, a final year student, specialized in materials science and technology under science and technology degree program of Uva Wellassa University carried out a project titled Construction of a Real Time Viscosity Meter to measure viscosity in production lines under the supervision of K.W.M.M.P. Wasala and Dr. Athula Wijesinghe of the University.

I did electronic projects as a hobby from my school days. After entering the university I turned to the electronic and robotics field more than before.

Sumudu Dayaratne

Some of my projects include Camera based Robotic Guide Program, Obstacle Avoiding and Wall Following Rover and IR serial data communicator, he said.

Viscometer

This viscometer is a low cost, portable, industrial applicable device, which has a user friendly controlling unit. This can be used to measure viscosity of Newtonian fluids.

The objective of the work is to design and construct an inexpensive, real time viscometer that could be used in industrial environments as well as in laboratory environments, that can be operated by unskilled persons.

This viscometer is capable to measure absolute viscosity in real time and it indicates in digital manner with temperature.

Digital real time viscometer consists with DC motor and motor controlling unit, spindle, temperature calculation unit, torque calculation unit, viscosity calculation unit and LCD.

DC motor and motor controlling unit measures the torque required to attain constant speed of a spindle and it converts to the viscosity by torque calculation unit, and viscosity calculation unit.

Torque values of the DC motor were calibrated by using another newly designed technique. Using this device, absolute viscosity values can be obtained. Also it can communicate and transfer data to a computer through the serial port for further analysis.

Viscosity is a fundamental characteristic property of all liquids. It describes the internal resistivity against fluid flow. Measuring viscosity is a crucial fact in various fields in Industry and research.

Many devices have already been made to measure fluid viscosity.

The viscometer invented by Sumudu

However, due to their high cost, it is not affordable for small-scale industries and academic research. Therefore, it is essential to have a low cost device.

It can be used as a portable viscometer as well as a stable viscometer. Also this can be used to measure viscosity of steady fluids and dynamic fluids.

It can measure viscosity of wide range by using series of spindle types. Spindles designed to adapt various measuring conditions. Such as portable condition, fixed condition, low viscosity condition, heavy viscosity condition and steady or dynamic fluid condition. Spindle can be easily changed according to the measuring condition and can select relevant mode by simple menu.

Processing units and the display unit of the viscometer can be assemble separately from the spindle/measuring unit. As a result, this can easily integrate with any industrial environment or application. And this viscometer withstand against any industrial environment.

Therefore it is capable to use within the runtime production process and can be incorporated with quality control process.

With few modifications this viscometer can be used to measure viscosities of same liquid sample for different shear rates.

These data may be useful to researchers in industries or researchers in academic institutions.