The status of ultrasonic flowmeters in Russia

From the West's latest scientific publications, it is clear that many interesting results of Russian researchers are not known to Western researchers because of the language barrier. The first experimental models of ultrasonic flowmeters in the USSR were designed in 1956 by Z.M. Shafranovskaia and colleagues in the Research Institute of Heat and Power Instrumentation and then in 1957-1959 by N.I. Brahznikov and G.I. Birger in the Special Design Office “Tsvetmetautomatika”, both in Moscow. Using examples taken in part from the author's 1989 book on Ultrasonic Flowmeters (in Russian) and noting in a few instances the nearly-simultaneous parallel developments in the West, this paper gives an account of some 35 years of ultrasonic flow measurement engineering in Russia, from the late 1950s to nowadays