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Flow Measurement

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Nigel Magaya
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16 views

Flow Measurement

Uploaded by

Nigel Magaya
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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FLOW MEASUREMENT

 Ms Ticharwa
Measurement of Flow
 Industrial flow measurements include measuring of flow rate of solids, liquids and
gases. There are two basic ways of measuring flow;
• one on volumetric basis
• The other on weight basis.
 Solid materials are measured in terms of either weight per unit time or mass per
unit time. Very rarely solid quantity is measured in terms of volume.
 Liquids are measured either in volume rate or in weight rate.
 Gases are normally measured in volume rate.
UNITS OF FLOW
 Solids: Normally expressed in weight rate, Tonnes/hour, Kg/minute etc.
 Liquids: Expressed both in weight rate and in volume rate.
 Examples : Tonnes/hour, Kg/minute, litres/hour, litres/minute, /hour
etc.
 Gases: Expressed in volume rate at NTP or STP, /hour etc.
 Steam. Expressed in weight rate, Tonnes/hour, Kg/minutes etc. Steam density
FLOW METERS
 Flow meter is a device that measures the rate of flow or quantity of a moving fluid
in an open or closed conduit.

 Flow measuring devices are generally classified into four groups.


CLASSIFICATION OF FLOW
METERS
Mechanical type flow meters
 Fixed restriction variable head type flow meters using different sensors like orifice
plate, venturi tube, flow nozzle, pitot tube, dall tube, quantity meters like
positive displacement meters, mass flow meters etc.
Inferential type flow meters
 Variable area flow meters (Rotameters), turbine flow meter, target flow meters
etc.
CLASSIFICATION OF FLOW
METERS
Electrical type flow meters
 Electromagnetic flow meter, Ultrasonic flow meter, Laser doppler, Anemometers

Other flow meters


 Purge flow regulators, Flow meters for Solids flow measurement Cross-correlation
flow meter, Vortex shedding flow meters, flow switches
DIFFERENTIAL PRESSURE METERS
 Differential pressure meters involve the
insertion of some device into a fluid-carrying
pipe that causes an obstruction and creates a
pressure difference on either side of the device.
 Such meters are sometimes known as
obstruction-type meters or flow-restriction
meters.
 Devices used to obstruct the flow include the
orifice plate, the Venturi tube, the flow nozzle
and the Dall flow tube
TYPES OF CONSTRICTIONS
DIFFERENTIAL PRESSURE METERS
 The orifice is the simplest, cheapest, easiest to replace, least accurate, more
subject to damage and erosion, and has the highest loss.
 The Venturi tube is more difficult to replace, most expensive, most accurate, has
high tolerance to damage and erosion, and the lowest losses of all the three tubes.
 The flow nozzle is intermediate between the other two and offers a good
compromise.
 The Dall tube has the advantage of having the lowest insertion loss but cannot be
used with slurries.
TOTAL FLOW
 Positive displacement meters use containers of known size, which are filled and
emptied for a known number of times in a given time period to give the total flow
volume.
 Two of the more common instruments for measuring total flow are the piston flow
meter and the nutating disc flow meter.
 Piston meters consist of a piston in a cylinder. Initially the fluid enters on one side
of the piston filling the cylinder, at which point the fluid is diverted to the other
side of the piston via valves and the outlet port of the full cylinder is opened.
TOTAL FLOW
 The redirection of fluid reverses the direction of the piston and fills the cylinder on
the other side of the piston.
 The number of times the piston traverses the cylinder in a given time frame gives
the total flow.
 The meter has high accuracy but is expensive.
 Nutating disc meters are in the form of a disc that oscillates, allowing a known
volume of fluid to pass with each oscillation.
 The oscillations can be counted to determine the total volume.
 This meter can be used to measure slurries but is expensive.
TOTAL FLOW
 Velocity meters, normally used to measure flow rate, can also be set up to measure
the total flow by tracking the velocity and knowing the cross-sectional area of the
meter to totalize the flow.
VARIABLE AREA FLOW-METERS (ROTAMETERS)
 In the variable area flow meter (which is also sometimes known as a Rotameter),
the differential pressure across a variable aperture is used to adjust the area of
the aperture.
 The aperture area is then a measure of the flow rate. The instrument is reliable
and cheap and used extensively throughout industry, accounting for about 20% of
all flow meters sold.
 Normally, this type of instrument only gives a visual indication of flow rate, and so
it is of no use in automatic control schemes.
 Special versions of variable area flow meters are now available that incorporate
fibre optics. In these, a row of fibres detects the position of the float by sensing
the reflection of light from it, and an electrical signal output can be derived from
this.
 It consists of a tapered
ROTAMETER glass tube containing a
float which takes up a
stable position where its
submerged weight is
balanced by the upthrust
due to the differential
pressure across it.
 The position of the float is
a measure of the effective
annular area of the flow
passage and hence of the
flow rate.
MASS FLOW
 By measuring the flow and knowing the density of a fluid, the mass of the flow can
be measured.
 Mass flow instruments include constant speed impeller turbine wheel-spring
combinations that relate the spring force to mass flow and devices that relate heat
transfer to mass flow.
DRY PARTICULATE FLOW RATE
 Dry particulate flow rate can be measured as the particulate are being
carried on a conveyer belt with the use of a load cell.
 To measure flow rate it is only necessary to measure the weight of
material on a fixed length of the conveyer belt.
 The flow rate Q is given by:

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