Numerical study on the effect of circumferential position of ultrasonic transducers on ultrasonic cross-correlation flowmeter performance under asymmetric air flow profile

Abstract

There are several ultrasonic flowmeter technologies such as transient time, cross-correlation, Doppler and etc. The performance of different types of ultrasonic flowmeters under disturbed flow profile due to elbow at upstream has been well studied recently except the cross-correlation type. The ultrasonic cross-correlation flowmeter (UCCF) has different mechanism of flow measurement in comparison with other types of ultrasonic flowmeters that strongly requires its own studies. In case of disturbed flow profile in pipe, due to asymmetrical velocity profile, the UCCF accuracy and required calibration factor are strongly dependent on the circumferential position of ultrasonic transducers on the pipe. Study on UCCF transducers circumferential position and specifying transducers proper position could incredibly improve the UCCF accuracy. The effect of transducers circumferential position on the accuracy in both single path and multipath has not been investigated for a UCCF so far. In this work, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted using turbulence model of RSM (Reynolds Stress Model) Stress-ω to simulate the asymmetrical air flow profile inside the elbow and the connected straight pipe in order to study the effect of circumferential position of transducers on calibration factor for special type of ultrasonic flowmeters ,UCCF, at different Reynolds numbers and various locations of flowmeter, for the first time. Moreover, the effects of Reynolds numbers and the flowmeter distances from the elbow on the calibration factor were analyzed. Finally, based on calculated calibration factors at different transducer circumferential positions, the best transducers arrangement at different flowmeter locations were proposed for single and multipath cross-correlation flowmeter. Also, in multipath ultrasonic cross correlation flowmeter, the optimum number of transducers were investigated.