At the Flow Centre of the TNO Institute of Applied Physics installation effects on various types of flowmeters are being studied. Recently, an extensive study on the impact of pulsations and mechanical pipe vibrations on the output of five different make 3-inch industrial vortex flowmeters has been finalised and the comparison has been presented at several occasions [1,2]. To study the impact of bluff body dimensions, the experiments have been repeated for a 1.5” and 4” vortex flowmeter. Also a detailed analysis has been carried out to study the impact of unsteady flow and pipe vibrations on...
Using ultrasound in vortex shedding flow-meters is a powerfull combination. The high sensitivity of ultrasound to the vortex structures enables a compleatly new design of the measuring system. Smallest bluff-bodies can be used generating a regular and well defined vortex street. At the same time the pressure loss caused by the bluff-body is minimised. The high sensitivity of ultrasound to the vortex structures and the secondary vortices requires the design of a special shaping with new properties.
Using ultrasound for the detection of vortex frequency in a vortex shedding flow-meter is a powerful combination. The demodulated timesignal of the ultrasound differs from the known timesignal received by the pressure sensor. The optimisation of bluff-bodies for the generation of well defined vortices requires a visualisation of the vortex street and the correlation of pressure and ultrasound for the enlightenment of the differences. Measuring the timedependent pressure plot around the bluff body shows the correlation between the modulation of the ultrasonic signal and the pressure...
Confirmation of measuring technology for flow rate of high pressurized gas is required. So, in order to build up measuring technology keeping ‘High Sensitiveness’, ‘Wide Rangeability’, ‘High Accuracy’, up to now, we have developed a vortex flow meter for gas with ‘one’ coupled ultrasonic sensors. And we confirmed this effectiveness by testing on an existing gas pipe line with high pressure. This type of vortex flow meter has a hole inside the bluff body situated in the flow, and the change of flow which are generated by vortexes lead to this hole. Ultrasonic sensors situated both side of...
This paper describes a method of validation of Ultrasonic Flow Meters (USM), which does not require their removal from the pipeline. The test gas is the natural gas metered under normal operating conditions. The paper describes the pipeline fittings and their installation, the testing procedure and the software and hardware required for its implementation, together with an error analysis of the method. The overall uncertainty is better than 0.15%.
Two commercially available clamp–on ultrasonic flowmeters were tested in the Laboratory of Measurement and Information Technology at Tampere University of Technology. In these tests two different pipe sizes, four different pipe materials and several sensor setups were used. The results show that it is very difficult to make accurate measurements in small pipes, because several factors have quite large effect on the meter performance. The measurement method, error in measured wall thickness, pipe material and the quality of the material are examples of these factors.
The objective of this paper is to show some characteristics of measurement of gas flows using ultra- sonic time of flight method. Also, USE-Ultraflux has developed a series of test on the IPT Anemometry facility to check the influence of several situations found on actual process plants on the ultra-sonic meter performance.
The Ultrasonic Flowmeter 5 beams is a unique flowmeter system for custody transfer flow measurement of hydrocarbons. It offers substantial improvements in accuracy and turndown required for custody transfer of high value petroleum products. Until now, ultrasonic flowmeters were not capable of meeting the stringent requirements for true fiscal and commercial metering.
Laboratory investigations of the fluid velocity field in the vortex meter are reported in the paper. The 2D hot-wire anemometer system has been applied for determination the velocity vector components and turbulence values distribution. Also, the spectral analysis of the fluid motion has been applied.
This paper deals with the development of a diagnostic system for flowmeters, that does not only make flowmeters work optimal under the toughest conditions, but can also diagnose the condition of instrument, process and installation. The paper describes the promising results of a pilot project for vortex flowmeters. Investigated items are vibrations, pulsations and cavitation. Making the flowmeter insensitive to these disturbances makes it possible to measure lower flow rates than before.