Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a Novel Flow Conditioner for Accuracy Improvement of Ultrasonic Gas Flowmeters

Abstract

The flow field is one of the key factors that affect the measuring accuracy of ultrasonic gas flowmeters. The present work demonstrates that the designed novel flow conditioner can enhance the measurement accuracy by homogenizing the velocity profile in the acoustic transmission area. The main objective of this study is to reduce the non-uniformity of flow on velocity distribution. To accomplish this objective, a combination of theoretical analysis and numerical simulations is implemented, and the results indicate that the 10:1 aspect ratio rectangular fluid channel is better applied in ultrasonic gas flowmeters. Thus, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of novel flow conditioner based on the 10:1 fluid channel is simulated and validated by an experimental study. The results verify that the ultrasonic gas flowmeter composed of designed flow conditioner can reduce indication errors by up to 6%; moreover, the repeatability of all the tested standard flow rates can meet the national standard and even be enhanced by 0.15%.