Performance of the LDA Volumetric Flow Rate Standard Under Severely Disturbed Flow Conditions

Abstract

Flow meters in thermal power plants are operated at high temperatures and pressures and often encounter disturbed flow profiles. This leads to an increased measurement uncertainty, limiting the safe operating range of flow rates and thus, the plant's power output. To respond to this shortcoming, the laser optical flow rate standard (LFS) was developed. The LFS is designed to allow the on-site calibration of industrial flow meters in power plants at high temperatures and pressures. It makes use of the laser Doppler anemometry (LDA), as a fundamental and non-invasive method, to measure the velocity field simultaneously with two LDA systems. The volumetric flow rate is then determined by means of integration. Here, we present flow rate measurements for a fully developed pipe flow and for six pipe diameters downstream of a disturbance generator. The mean deviation in flow rate between the two LDA systems was 0.05%, with a mean deviation from the gravimetric reference flow rate of 0.12%. The highest deviations from the reference were 0.21% and 0.31%, for the first and second system respectively.