The assessment of metrological properties of segmental orifice based on simulations and experiments

Abstract

Segmental orifices are often used to measure flows of heterogeneous mixtures, especially in flow meters in the power industry, for example. The orifice (with module m = 0.25) was installed in a stainless-steel pipe with internal diameter of 50 mm, placed in a hydraulic water system. The research was performed for Reynolds numbers ranging from 9,000 to 17,000. The flow characteristics of this orifice obtained based on simulation in SolidWorks Flow Simulation 2014 and experimental data were compared with standard-based calculations. It was determined that relative differences between the obtained flow characteristics did not exceed 1.5% for the experiment and 5.1% for the simulation. The article also presents the results of estimated uncertainty for mass flow measurement qm using the analytical method and the Monte Carlo simulations. The results for both methods proved that the relative expanded uncertainty Urel(qm) does not exceed 1.8% for the tested orifice.