No: 77 Semester: 1st Submitted to: Sir Bilal Awaan Topic: Flow Measuring devices Chemical Engineering Department NFC-IEFR, Faisalabad.
Flow Measurement:
Flow measurement is the quantification of bulk fluid movement. Flow can be measured in a variety of ways. Positive-displacement flow meters accumulate a fixed volume of fluid and then count the number of times the volume is filled to measure flow. Other flow measurement methods rely on forces produced by the flowing stream as it overcomes a known constriction, to indirectly calculate flow. Flow may be measured by measuring the velocity of fluid over a known area.
In the construction of coriolis flowmeter, we have pair of parallel vibrating tubes or single but in two parallel section shape. The commonly used material for tubes is stainless steel. These tubes will vibrate orthogonal as liquid flows inside tubes. Coriolis flow meter also comes in different shapes like D-shaped, U-shaped, Bshaped, helix-shaped, triangular-shaped and straight.
The ends of tubes are fastened with electromechanical drive unit which start excitation at tube resonant frequency. During this excitation, vibrations produced in the tubes are 180 apart. These vibrations will force fluid particles to move orthogonal to the flow direction. Due to this orthogonal motion, bending will produce in the tubes which will superimpose the effect during vibration. Therefore vibratory motion produced in one tube relative to other is d = kfR, where k is the constant, f is the frequency of tube vibration and R is the mass flow rate of liquid.
Applications
1. Water & Waste Water 2. Pulp & Paper 3. Cellulose 4. Pharmaceuticals 5. Food & Beverage 6. Cosmetics 7. Mining 8. Chemical Processing 9. Agricultural Fertilizer 10. Liquid Feed Batching
Positive displacement type flowmeters usually offer high accuracy i.e. about 0.1% of actual flow rate sometimes. Metering accuracy of the unit gets better with the increase in the process fluid viscosity. PD meters also provide excellent repeatability which can be as high as 0.05% of reading. PD meters can work without using a power supply. Moreover, they do not necessitate straight upstream and downstream pipe runs to install them.
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PD meters exist in size upto 12 in. Their turndown ratio can be as high as 100:1. Since PD meters have very small clearances between their precisionmachined parts, rapid wear influences their accuracy. Therefore, these types of meters are normally not suggested for measurement of slurries or abrasive fluids. Positive displacement flowmeters are commonly employed as household water meters.
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Types:
1. Reciprocating Piston Meters 2. Oval-gear Meters 3. Nutating-disk Meters 4. Rotary-vane Meters
Pitot Tubes:
A pitot tube is a pressure measurement instrument used to measure
fluid flow velocity. The pitot tube was invented by the French engineer Henri Pitot in the early 18th century. It was widely used to determine the airspeed of anaircraft and to measure air and gas velocities in industrial applications. The pitot tube is used to measure the local velocity at a given point in the flow stream and not the average velocity in the pipe or conduit Although the Pitot tube is one of the simplest flow sensors, it is used in a wide range of flow measurement applications such as air speed in racing cars and Air Force fighter jets. In industrial applications, pitot tubes are used to measure air flow in pipes, ducts, and stacks, and liquid flow in pipes, weirs, and open channels. While accuracy and rangeability are relatively low, pitot tubes are simple, reliable, inexpensive, and suited for a variety of environmental conditions, including extremely high temperatures and a wide range of pressures.
The Pitot tube is an inexpensive alternative to an orifice plate. Accuracy ranges from 0.5% to 5% FS, which is comparable to that of an orifice. Its flow rangeability of 3:1 (some operate at 4:1) is also similar to the capability of the orifice plate. The main difference is that, while an orifice measures the full flowstream, the Pitot tube detects the flow velocity at only one point in the
flowstream. An advantage of the slender Pitot tube is that it can be inserted into existing and pressurized pipelines (called hot-tapping) without requiring a shutdown.
Applications:
In industry, the velocities being measured are often those flowing in ducts and tubing where measurements by an anemometer would be difficult to obtain. In these kinds of measurements, the most practical instrument to use is the pitot tube. The pitot tube can be inserted through a small hole in the duct with the pitot connected to a U-tube water gauge or some other differential pressure gauge(alnor) for determining the velocity inside the ducted wind tunnel. One use of this technique is to determine the volume of air that is being delivered to a conditioned space. The fluid flow rate in a duct can then be estimated from: Volume flow rate (cubic feet per minute) = duct area (square feet) velocity (feet per minute) Volume flow rate (cubic meters per second) = duct area (square meters) velocity (meters per second) In aviation, airspeed is typically measured in knots.
Bluff body shapes (square, rectangular, t-shaped, trapezoidal) and dimensions have been experimented with to achieve the desired characteristics. Testing has shown that linearity, low Reynolds number limitation, and sensitivity to velocity profile distortion vary only slightly with bluff body shape. In size, the bluff body must have a width that is a large enough fraction of the pipe diameter that the entire flow participates in the shedding. Second, the bluff body must have protruding edges on the upstream face to fix the lines of flow separation, regardless of the flow rate. Third, the bluff body length in the direction of the flow must be a certain multiple of the bluff body width.
Applications:
Vortex meters are used in numerous branches of industry to measure the volume flow of liquids, gases and steam. Applications in the chemicals and petrochemicals industries, for example, in power generation and heat-supply systems involve widely differing fluids: saturated steam, superheated steam, compressed air, nitrogen, liquefied gases, flue gases, carbon dioxide, fully demineralized water, solvents, heattransfer oils, boiler feedwater, condensate, etc. Vortex meters are particularly popular in all sectors of industry for metering steam. Vortex meters measure volume flow, but steam systems are generally rated by mass or energy content, so these meters are frequently used in combination with a pressure and/or temperature sensor and a flow computer. A configuration of this nature helps save energy and is ideal for allocating the costs of generation across multiple consumers.