A piston prover determines the gas flow rate by measuring the time interval that a movable piston inside a cylinder needs to pass a known volume of gas at a defined pressure and temperature. This paper deals with the dynamic effects related to the operation of a high-speed, clearance-sealed realization of the piston prover concept. Its dynamic characteristics are analysed by means of pressure-response measurements and lumped-element mathematical modelling. The experimental results show that the pressure oscillations during the timing cycle increase significantly above a certain flow rate and have multiple frequency components. They could be related to the resonance effects of the piston oscillator, which is excited by the flow instabilities of the gas flowing in the cylinder below the piston. The simulations show that the sensitivity to the dynamic pressure effects depends on the properties of the thermodynamic gas processes being adiabatic, polytropic or isothermal. A new, modified flow equation of the piston prover, which considers the polytropic index as an input variable, is proposed.
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