Compressed air is the most expensive kind of energy which is used in industrial applications. All the more important is an efficient monitoring of compressed air consumption. This is achieved successfully using the new thermal SD compressed air meters from ifm.

The new thermal SD compressed air meters are ideal for fast and reliable identification of leakages in compressed air systems. The modern sensor does not only measure the pressure but also the temperature and the volumetric flow and so that it can also be used as a quantity meter. The user needs only one sensor which saves hardware, installation and maintenance costs. The integrated pressure measurement has decisive advantages in many applications. The pressure loss at dirty filter systems can, for example, be monitored. Timely maintenance of the filters can contribute to cost reduction. A decrease of productivity by too low pressure is quickly detected and can be eliminated. Too high pressures which can lead to an increased wear of components can also be reliably detected.

With the flow rate measurement, the compressed air consumption can be directly allocated to different consumers or production lines. This allows optimisation of cost calculation and an increase in efficiency, also in the context of energy management systems. Thanks to the simulated temperature measurement, the accuracy of the volumetric flow and pressure measurement is very high, amounting to 3 % or 1.5 %. 

The compact compressed air meter can visualise the measured values directly on site on the built-in TFT display. The staff always have an overview of the 6 bar and 12 bar compressed air systems. Four different individually adjustable graphic layouts are available for the visualisation. The SD also has an IO-Link interface and can be integrated in higher-level systems.