Methodology for developing a high-precision ultrasound flow meter and fluid velocity profile reconstruction

Abstract

This article reports the methodology used to develop a high-precision ultrasound transit time flow meter dedicated to liquid hydrocarbons. This kind of flow meter is designed for custody transfer applications requiring accuracy better than 0.15% of reading. We focus here on certain specific points to achieve this accuracy. The transit time method needs to estimate accurately the time delay between signals received by a pair of transducers. In this study, we review different ways of estimating this time delay. We also propose a specific configuration of the flow meter paths. In particular, this configuration compensates for the swirl phenomenon, which has a significant impact on the accuracy of the flow meter. We also propose a theoretical parametric profile to reconstruct the fluid velocity profile in order to perform in situ diagnosis of the flow. The parameters of the model are estimated from the measurements of the flow meter. Simulations and experimental results showed that this method provides characterization of the flow in disturbed and undisturbed flow conditions.

Ultrasonic tomographic velocimeter for visualization of axial flow fields in pipes

“…Referring to Ref. [23], the transverse flow field composes of two symmetric swirls and can be described by Eq. (13).…”

“…The data acquired by the data acquisition cards is processed offline to calculate the line velocities and reconstruct the flow fields. For the measurement of line velocities, the transit time was computed with the Hilbert transform correlation method [23].…”

Design of a low power time to digital converter for flow metering applications

“…Ultrasonic techniques are widely used for flow metering applications in both medical and industrial fields, [1] [2]. Ultrasonic flow meters present evident advantages with respect to other known methods (such as turbine, Venturi and others) to measure the volumetric flow rate of a fluid: measurement does not require any moving parts which implies low maintenance cost, is non-intrusive thus resulting in low pressure drop, and the equipment can be eventually portable.…”

An Improved Measurement Algorithm for Increasing the Accuracy of Sing-Around Type Ultrasonic Flow Meters

“…Nowadays measuring fluid flows accurately is an open research field. From simple steam materials flows to two-phase flows with solids [1][2][3][4], the search is ongoing for improving the accuracy and cost of flow meters [5][6][7][8][9][10]. With today's environmental regulations requiring both more accurate flow measurements and high-energy costs making fuel consumption a primary problem, traditional measurement methods are not adequate yet [11].…”