Portasteele® CALCULATOR

Liquid level to agent weight calculator & data recorder

Ultrasonic liquid level detection is a considerably more practical means of monitoring the contents of your fire suppression cylinders than removing and individually weighing each cylinder. It is quicker, easier and, as it avoids any down time of your fire suppression systems, safer than the alternatives. However, cylinder manufacturers do not provide the liquid level of a filled cylinder; the only documented evidence of a cylinder’s contents is its fill weight. Furthermore, the liquid level will fluctuate with temperature, as the density of the liquid changes. This will happen by different amounts for different agents and cylinder sizes and, therefore, is not trivial to predict. 

The Portasteele® CALCULATOR solves both of these issues. Using dimensional data about the cylinder provided by the user and the liquid level found with one of our Portalevel® units to precisely calculate the agent weight. This Portasteele® CALCULATOR automatically handles the effect of temperature in its calculations and allows you to reliably calculate the mass of agent in your cylinder to within 1% of the true value. This allows your liquid level measurements to be compared directly to the fill weight printed on the cylinder providing you with unparalleled traceability to your liquid level measurements. 

Smart data recording 

The Portasteele® CALCULATOR is designed for use with cylinders containing liquified agents, where there are distinct liquid and gas regions in the cylinder. However, there are a number of agents, such as CO2 and FE-13, which have what is known as their “critical point” within standard atmospheric temperatures, when stored at pressure. When a substance reaches its critical point, it ceases to exist as distinct layers of liquid and gas and becomes something known instead as a “supercritical fluid”. When this occurs, it is no longer possible to use the liquid level to monitor contents, as there will be no liquid level.  

The Portasteele® CALCULATOR takes away the option to record data for substances that will likely be in this state. For CO2, for instance, this critical point occurs at 31°C, so if a user inputs a temperature in excess of this, the Portasteele® CALCULATOR will present an error and they will not be able to proceed and save this measurement.