Final activity report of the “Workshop of Advanced Studies for Steam Flow Measurement”

Abstract

The "Workshop of Advancement of Steam Flow Measurement" started its activities in April 2017 within the Power and Energy Systems Division of the JSME and finished as planned in March 2022. The industrial sector has a steam demand of 1.12 million TJ/year, which is the second largest energy source after electricity, and steam accounts for about 80% of the heat energy use in the industrial sector and is widely used in large quantities in the main production processes: sterilization, drying, cleaning and distillation. Steam is thus a major heat source in the industrial sector and there is a strong need for flow measurement from the perspective of energy conservation. However, flow measurement of steam is very difficult due to its high temperature and susceptibility to wetness. In addition, there are very few measurement standards. Therefore, the study group has made efforts to clarify the condition of application and accuracy of each measurement method with regard to the flow measurement method of steam. The number of committee members is 30 (chief: Shuichi Umezawa (Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.), vice-chair: Ryo Morita (Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry), secretary: Tatsuya Funaki (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)), who come from universities, companies, research institutes and others. The frequency of its activities is as follows: it holds study groups once or twice a year, summarizes its results and publishes a report. The predecessor of this study group, the "Workshop of Wet Steam Flow Measurement" (April 2012 - March 2017), also published a report summarizing its overall activities. On the basis of these results, an academic standards development committee has been set up this year and is preparing guidelines for the correction of wet steam flow rate indications from the perspective of thermal energy utilization.