A new type of velocity averaging tube vortex flow sensor and measurement model of mass flow rate

Abstract

Accurate mass flow rate measurement of fluid is one of the key technologies to ensure product quality and utilization of energy resources. However, the accuracy of traditional combined measuring devices is limited. In this paper, a new type of velocity averaging tube vortex flow sensor (VATV) is designed, and the mass flow rate measurement model is proposed and analyzed to achieve the high precision measurement of mass flow rate. The size, shape and structure of the VATV are designed in this study and there are no moving parts inside the integrated VATV. The method of double differential pressure is proposed to achieve the measurement of the average differential pressure signal and differential pressure fluctuation signal. Then, the method of Empirical Wavelet Transform (EWT) is used to extract the vortex shedding frequency from the differential pressure fluctuation signal. It indicated that the proposed VATV achieves an accuracy of ±0.50%, and the repeatability is also lower than 0.07%. A remarkable improvement of accuracy is achieved compared to the original combined measurement devices. The proposed sensor shows good prospect for the detection of gas-liquid two-phase flow such as wet stream due to the feature of strong anti-interference, high stability and reliability.