V-cone Flowmeter Research Articles

Structural optimization of the electric fuel pump V-cone flow meter based on CFD

Structural optimization of the electric fuel pump V-cone flow meter based on CFD

Examining the Performance Traits of a Rear-Supported V-Cone Flowmeter

Flow measurement holds significant importance in numerous industrial processes, demanding high levels of accuracy and reliability. Among the diverse range of flowmeter designs available, the rear-supported V-Cone flowmeter stands out due to its inherent advantages such as minimal pressure drop, extensive range ability, and adaptability to various flow conditions. This paper undertakes a comprehensive examination of the performance attributes of the rear-supported V-Cone flowmeter, with a specific focus on its accuracy, repeatability, and stability across varying operational parameters. Through a combination of experimental investigations and computational simulations, we delve into the flow characteristics and performance metrics of the rear-supported V-Cone flowmeter, offering valuable insights for its practical utilization. The findings presented herein contribute to a deeper understanding of the capabilities and limitations of this flow measurement technology, thereby facilitating its effective implementation in industrial settings.

A numerical model for simulating separated gas-liquid two-phase flow with low GVF in a V-cone flowmeter

One of the relatively new types of differential pressure flowmeters is the V-Cone (conical or cone) meter. In addition to having many advantages over other types, this flowmeter can also be used in multiphase flows. In the last few decades, many numerical works have been presented for single-phase flows. But in the discussion of two-phase flow, most of the available works are related to experimental research. Therefore, in this paper, the separated two-phase flow with a low gas volume fraction (GVF) has been numerically investigated. For this purpose, an unstructured grid and finite volume numerical method were used. In order to model the two-phase flow and turbulence, the existing approaches were compared. According to the results obtained, the volume of fluid (VOF) method for simulating two-phase flow and the Realizable k-ε model for turbulence modeling lead to better results than other investigated models. Also, by stimulating the flow with the aforementioned methods, it was found that the accuracy of the pressure calculation decreases with the reduction of the superficial velocity and volume fraction of the gas. Furthermore, for a more detailed analysis, the superiority of the Realizable k-ε turbulence model compared to other investigated models was proved quantitatively.

Design of a Composite Body for Improved Performance of a V-Cone Flowmeter

Design of a Composite Body for Improved Performance of a V-Cone Flowmeter

Discus flowmeter: A new concept

Abstract The present paper introduces a new concept of a flowrate measuring device named ‘Discus flowmeter’ in the class of obstruction flowmeter. The device has a symmetrical body creating the obstruction and the flow is thru the annulus. It works on the same principle as other obstruction type pressure differential flowmeters. The investigation is carried out for different diameter ratios (β-values) using three pressure tap combinations in the range of 103 ≤ Re ≤ 106 to explore the effect of these parameters on the performance of Discus flowmeter. The evaluation of discharge coefficient (Cd) is done for three pressure tap combinations and the permanent pressure loss coefficient is also evaluated. The variation of Cd with Reynolds number shows that for the pressure tap combination of 1D upstream and the stagnation point downstream of the body is nearly independent of β-value. The mean Cd value is almost the same as that of the V-cone flowmeter as laid down in ISO 5167-5. The permanent pressure loss coefficient for the Discus flowmeter is lower compared to the V-cone flowmeter for all β-values studied. As the body is symmetric in x-y plane, the flowmeter could also be used in both the directions (bi-directional flowmeter). It is expected that the Discus flowmeter could be a better alternative to the conventional obstruction flowmeters.

Effect of Reynolds number and boundary layer thickness on the performance of V-cone flowmeter using CFD

The effect of Reynolds number and boundary layer thickness on the performance of V-cone flowmeter has been evaluated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The shear stress transport k-ω (SST k-ω) turbulence model has been adopted for closure. The performance of two V-cone flowmeters with different beta ratios (β) viz., 0.6 and 0.7 for a fixed vertex angle (ϕ) of 60° has been analysed as a function of Reynolds number (Re). The results show that the coefficient of discharge (Cd) increases with Reynolds number in the laminar and transition flow regimes whereas it is nearly constant in turbulent flow regime. From the results, it can be concluded that Cd is independent of Re for values equal to 4000 and beyond. Further, it is also seen that the performance of the V-cone flowmeter is not affected by the upstream boundary layer thickness if the velocity profiles having different boundary layer thickness are extracted from an axial distance of 10D and more are fed at 5D upstream of the meter. However, the meter is sensitive to the extracted velocity profile from an axial distance of 5D and uniform velocity profile being fed at 5D upstream. The value of Cd may be sensitive as a result of the pressure variation due to the obstruction.

Performance of V-Cone flowmeter applied to cryogenic fluid measurement considering cavitation

The V-Cone flowmeter is a promising differential pressure flowmeter for metering the cryogenic fluid for its many advantages. When the cryogen velocity increases to a certain value, the cavitation may occur in flowmeter, which may significantly affect the performance of V-Cone flowmeter. However, the effect of cavitation on performance of V-Cone flowmeter remains unclear and there are no published studies to our knowledge on this issue. Here we investigate the performance of V-Cone flowmeter when measuring the cryogenic fluids, especially the effects of cavitation on the discharge coefficient and pressure loss coefficient of the flowmeter. Two cryogenic fluids are investigated, including liquid nitrogen (LN2) and liquid hydrogen (LH2). For comparison, the water is also investigated. The realizable κ-ε model is used to describe the turbulence. The Schnerr-Sauer cavitation model is used to investigate the effect of cavitation on the performance of the V-Cone flowmeter. The results show that there was little effect of cavitation on the discharge coefficient and pressure loss coefficient at the initial stage of cavitation. When the cloud cavitation occurred downstream of V-Cone, the discharge coefficient decreases rapidly with Reynolds number increasing, while the pressure loss coefficient rises quickly. The average discharge coefficient is almost the same for different fluids in the stable region; while the cryogenic fluids have wider stable Reynolds number ranges than the water. The lower limits of the Reynolds number for the constant discharge coefficient is very close for three fluids, however, for the upper limits of Reynolds number are quite different. We conclude that measurement range of the cryogenic fluid is much larger than that of the water, which shows that the V-Cone flowmeter exhibits great potential in the measurement of cryogenic fluid. This study provides insights into the effect of cavitation on the measurement of V-Cone flowmeter and opens a new avenue for properly choosing and using a V-Cone flowmeter for metering the cryogenic fluid.

Shape optimization of the cone body for the improved performance of the V-cone flowmeter: A numerical study

The present study has been carried out to optimize the shape of the cone body by providing a curved surface (the radius of curvature (R)) at the base of the cone element for improving the performance of the V-cone flowmeter using CFD. Radii of curvature of 20 mm (hemispherical, R/d = 0.5), 22 mm (R/d = 0.55) 25 mm (R/d = 0.625) and 27.62 mm (R/d = 0.6905) are taken in order to gradually reduce the arc length keeping the chord length constant. In addition a semi-elliptical based cone with 20 mm semi-major axis and10 mm semi-minor axis has also been investigated in the present study. The centre of the spheres and ellipse lie on the axis either in the frustum or cylindrical part of the cone. The equivalent diameter ratio (β) has been taken as 0.6 while three different fore-vertex angles (φ) namely 60°, 75° and 90° have been investigated. The Reynolds number has been varied in the range of 1 × 103 to 1 × 106. The results have been compared with the slant surface based cone. It is seen that introduction of a curved surface at the cone base has profound effect on the coefficient of discharge of the V-cone flowmeter. The coefficient of discharge is dependent on Reynolds number for the flowmeter with hemispherical and semi-elliptical based cone element. The coefficient of discharge is seen to be a weak function of Reynolds number for Re = 4000 and beyond for the other three curvatures. The cone flowmeter with a curved base cone of R/d equals to 0.55 has higher coefficient of discharge and smaller standard deviation compared to a device with an aft vertex cone.

Effect of vertex angle and vertex tip radius on the performance of V-cone flow meter using CFD

The aim of the present systematic study is to establish the effect of vertex angle and vertex tip radius on the performance of the V-cone flowmeter. Three different cone arrangements namely without support, front and rear supported cone element have been undertaken for a fixed beta value (β) of 0.6 with different vertex angles (φ). Shear Stress Transport k-ω (SST k-ω) turbulence model has been adopted for the closure solution. The performance evaluation is done on the basis of coefficient of discharge (Cd) and the extent of uncertainty (UCd) present in predictions within the range of Reynolds number (Re) investigated (Re = 103 to 106). This study is in the back drop of ISO 5167-5(2016) which has identified the vertex angle in the range of 52°±10°. From the study, it is revealed that in all the three mode of the cone arrangements, the cone element with vertex angle of 75° results in a discharge coefficient which is nearly constant for Reynolds number greater than 1000 with minimum uncertainty. An additional investigation has also been carried out for three vertex angles (φ) namely 60°,75° and 90° to analyze the effect of cone tip radius at Re = 5 × 105 on the performance of the V-cone flowmeter. It is seen that vertex tip radius has no effect on the performance.

Simulation and Optimization of Throttle Flowmeter with Inner-Outer Tube Element

Abstract In order to solve the dilemma between the smaller pressure loss and the larger flow measurement signal in traditional throttle flowmeters, a throttle structure with the inner-outer tube was designed and analyzed. The mathematical relationship model deduced from hydrodynamics showed there were three major parameters to determine the designed throttle structure. Furthermore, the optimal results were achieved by combining orthogonal test design and computational fluid dynamics by taking the ratio of differential pressure of inner-outer tube divided by that of anterior-posterior tube as the optimization goal. Finally, the simulation results with the best level parameters showed that the differential pressure of the anterior-posterior throttle could remain not only the smaller value among other parameters with the same structure of inner-outer tube. On the other hand, it was about one order magnitude less than differential pressure of V-cone flowmeter in the similar installation conditions with the flow velocity varying from 0.5 to 3.0 m/s. The designed inner-outer tube flowmeter can not only save manufacture costs, but also avoid the large sensitivity of pressure sensors, which may lead to a broader application in chemical and petrochemical enterprises.

Experimental optimization for dual support structures cone flow meters based on cone wake flow field characteristics

Currently, poor safety and processing repeatability are two primary problems that restrict the development of cone flow meters. Cone flow meters with upstream and downstream support structures can improve the safety performance and the level of processing repeatability. For a dual support structures cone flow meter, known as a DSSC, the selection of the downstream support position can greatly affect the discharge coefficient and linearity error below a certain range ratio. Through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation research, the conclusion can be drawn that there exists a large scale vortex ring in the wake field of the cone and that the distribution of the vortex is related to the parameters of the cone. Based on the characteristics of the cone vortex ring, optimizing experiments examining downstream pressure tapping and support structure positions have been designed. The downstream pressure tapping and support positions were obtained for DSSCs with DN100 and β values between 0.45 and 0.65. A set of DSSCs was manufactured according to the conclusions of the optimizing experiments, and performance tests were conducted. The DSSC prototypes had β values ranging from 0.45 to 0.65 and diameters of 50mm, 100mm, and 200mm, respectively. Test results indicate that the discharge coefficient linearity error of DSSC flow meters is smaller than that of V-Cone flow meters. The discharge coefficient uncertainty of DSSCs with different inner tube diameters is 1.27%. The relative discharge coefficient uncertainty of prototypes because of machining consistency is 0.68%.

Study on Flow Measurement Model of Gas-Liquid Two-Phase at Inlet of Wellhead for the Exploitation of Natural Gas Hydrate

CO2 injection is an effective method for exploitation of natural gas hydrate. The injected CO2 flow measurement at inlet of wellhead is a gas-liquid two-phase flow for the exploitation of natural gas hydrate. The numerical simulation of gas-liquid two-phase flow is carried by FLUENT software in combination with a V-cone flowmeter. The rate of flow of fluid and the turbulent kinetic energy were analyzed for V-cone flowmeter. The efflux coefficients of V-cone flowmeter are calculated for the different equivalent diameter ratio. Based on homogeneous flow model, thoughts of James and the curves of volume flow, the lasted modified model of gas-liquid two-phase flow is obtained. The relative error is only 0.35%. It is feasible to measure the flow of gas-liquid two-phase flow by the lasted modified model, which will improve the exploitation of natural gas hydrate.

A new model for the V-Cone meter in low pressure wet gas metering

Wet gas metering with differential pressure (DP) devices (e.g. the orifice plate, the Venturi and the V-Cone) has gained increasing interest in the oil and gas industry. Many investigations have been performed and several models have been proposed. Among the DP devices, the V-Cone flow meter has received increasing attention owing to its remarkable performance characteristics, including high accuracy, excellent repeatability, wide turndowns, shorter straight length and stable signals. In this work, we developed a new method for predicting the gas flow rate in low pressure wet gas flow using a V-Cone flow meter with the diameter ratio of 0.55. The experimental fluid was air and tap water. The test pressure ranged from 0.10 to 0.48 MPa, and the gas and liquid mass flow rates ranged from 100 to 500 N m3 h−1 and from 0.030 to 0.358 m3 h−1, respectively. Thus, the Lockhart–Martinelli parameter, XLM, was up to 0.158 and the gas volume fraction ranged from 98.94% to 100%. A dimensionless parameter, K, was proposed in this work and defined as the two-phase flow coefficient of the flow meter. The results indicated that the K linearly increased with the Lockhart–Martinelli parameter. In addition, the K increased with the gas densiometric Froude number and decreased with the operating pressure when other parameters were kept constant. On the basis of the two-phase flow coefficient, a new wet gas model was developed and compared with seven popular wet gas models. It was found that with the V-Cone flow meter and under the present experimental conditions the new model produced a more accurate prediction of the wet gas than other models. The research approach to obtaining the model can also be used in the studies on other DP devices and thus will benefit the design of wet gas meters.

Experimental Research on the Expansibility Factor Calculation Model of V-Cone Flowmeters

This article aims to improve the accuracy of gas flow measurement of cone flowmeter and get a high-precision expansibility factor calculation model with wide applicable pressure range and different upstream side pressure. The experimental research was based on the DN50 and DN100 two sets of V-Cone flowmeter designed by Tianjin University. As the standard gas flow facility by means of critical flow venturi nozzles was insufficient supply capacity and poor pressure stability in positive pressure method, the experimental data obtained from standard gas flow facility by using negative pressure method was used to fit out the V-Cone flowmeter expansibility factor calculation model --TJU-2012 model. The model was tested with the experimental data obtained from the standard gas flow facility and compared with other four cone flowmeter expansibility factor calculation models, its maximum relative error was better than 0.9% and square averaged root error was better than 0.6%, both of them are the least.

Microcontroller-Based Design within the Cone Flowmeter

The flow throttling device for the V-shaped cone-type cutting device, the throttling device to break the traditional flow through the throttling device will shrink to the concept of the pipeline near the central axis, the use of coaxial pipe installed in the V-shaped tip cone contraction of the fluid gradually cutting edge to the inner pipe wall, by measuring the V-shaped inner cone to measure the differential pressure before and after the flow of design ideas. This V-cone flowmeter in a shorter straight pipe conditions, to a wider range than on the clean or dirty fluids to achieve a more accurate and more effective flow measurement. This will be based on single-chip cone flowmeter air mixing systems used in ship gas flow measurements, experimental results show that the SCM-based cone flowmeter has a small size, light weight, high accuracy, easy to use security features .

Characteristic Variables Extracting of the Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Flow through V-Cone Flowmeter Based on Adaptive Optimal-Kernel Theory

In order to study the mechanism of gas-liquid two-phase flow, a method of characteristic variables extracting based on Adaptive Optimal-Kernel (AOK) theory was represented in the paper. First, to collect dynamic differential pressure signal of gas-liquid two-phase flow through a horizontal V-cone flow meter, and then the AOK theory was used to analyze the dynamic differential pressure signal. The movement law of two-phase flow was discussed through the time-frequency spectrum. Finally, four characteristic variables were defined by using the time-frequency spectrum and the ridge of AOK. After the characteristic variables were visual analyzed, the relationship between the different combination of characteristic variables and the flow pattern was obtained. The results show that, characteristic variables defined by this method can get a clear description of the flow information. This method provides a new way for the flow patterns identification.

Development of an Vehicular Test System on Vehicle NO<sub>x</sub> Emission and Fuel Consumption

This paper introduced the test system which can record and process the related condition parameter considering the needs of international vehicle emission (IVE) model. In order to improve its extendibility and versatility, gasoline vehicle fuel consumption measurement model based on carbon balance method was established. Theoretical model of calculating nitrogen oxides (NOx) emission and fuel consumption by carbon balance method is illustrated. And to measure the exhaust gas flow rate, a V-cone flow-meter and a gas analyzer which were modularized were designed, too.

3-D Numerical Simulation and Analysis on V-Cone Flowmeter Based on LES Method

The rear pressure measurement position of V-cone flowmeter is in the complex vortex structure area after fluid around the cone. The non-uniformity of the fluid field will influence the measurement precision of V-cone flowmeter. Large eddy simulation (LES) has been used to study the V-cone flowmeter’s 3-D flow field structure with different Reynolds number in this paper. The better fluid area information can gain by this way. The results show that the values of discharge coefficient (Cd) obtained from LES are more close to the experiment data than the values obtained from k-ε model. Different turbulence intensity with different Reynolds number effects the velocity distribution in the V-cone flowmeter’s flow field. When Reynolds number equals to 20000, the flow field within 8d distance from V-cone tail should keep from being disturbed while the flowmeter under working condition. The non-interfering distance from V-cone tail flow field increases with the Reynolds number raising. These analysis results can offer optimizational information for V-cone flowmeter performance and testing method improvement.

Numerical Simulation of V-cone Flow Meter in Product Oil Pipeline of Batch Transportation

For product oil pipeline of batch transportation, this article describes the application of a V-cone flow meter in flow rate calculation of mixing oil in a pipeline, analyzes the velocity distribution in the internal flow field of a pipeline, obtains the qualitative relationship between the discharge coefficient of a V-cone flow meter and Reynolds number of mixing oil, and obtains the variation law of skin friction coefficient on the surface of the pipeline. The results show that a V-cone flow meter can overcome the shortcomings of a traditional flow meter. A V-cone flow meter can be used to measure the flow rate of a mixing oil section.

Modification to mass flow rate correlation in oil–water two-phase flow by a V-cone flow meter in consideration of the oil–water viscosity ratio

Oil–water two-phase flow widely exists and its measurement is of significance in oil well logging, oil transportations, etc. One of the techniques in common use in oil–water two-phase flow rate measurement is the differential pressure (DP) meters combining a theoretical model connecting the mass flow rate of the mixture with the differential pressures generated by the throttling element installed inside the pipeline. Though a number of publications focus on DP meters in measuring gas–water two-phase flows or wet gas, the existing models are still not very compatible in oil–water two-phase flow. In this work, a series of oil–water two-phase flow experiments were conducted in a horizontal pipe of 50 mm diameter and the flow rate was measured by a V-cone meter with a diameter ratio of 0.65. Available correlations of DP meters developed from gas–water flow are studied and compared with the measured data from the V-cone meter. A modified correlation is proposed based on the influence of viscosity of oil upon the differential pressure model and three-dimensional computerized fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. The results have shown that the proposed method achieves better accuracy in oil–water two-phase flow rate measurement than other DP correlations, and it can be extended to other oil–water flow conditions by adjusting the tuning factor.