Investigations on the Influence of Total Water Hardness and pH Value on the Measurement Accuracy of Domestic Cold Water Meters

In the framework of the ongoing EMPIR Joint Research Project (JRP) 17IND13 Metrology for real-world domestic water metering (Metrowamet), a main task is to investigate the influence of realistic operation conditions, that is, typical water qualities (suspended particles, degree of hardness, and pH value), on the measurement accuracy. For this purpose, two representative types of cold water meters were investigated in more detail. Initially, the cold water meters were calibrated and then subjected to an accelerated wear test with water of different pH values and degrees of hardness. The accelerated wear tests were designed to reproduce the realistic use and service life of a cold water meter. Subsequently, the cold water meters were re-calibrated to assess the influence of the different water qualities on the measurement accuracy. One of the results was that the measurement accuracy of the water meters investigated was not strongly affected by the water quality. The practical realisation and the measurement results are reported in this paper.