Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
CFD ANALYSIS OF AN ULTRASONIC FLOWMETER UNDER DIFFERENT FLOW CONDITIONS
Submission Author:
Augusto Luiz Cheffer de Melo , RJ
Co-Authors:
Augusto Luiz Cheffer de Melo, Douglas de Almeida Garcia, fabio ouverney costa, Luiz Octavio Vieira Pereira, Bruno Almeida, Philippe Rollemberg d'Egmont
Presenter: Augusto Luiz Cheffer de Melo
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-0515
Abstract
Some flow measurement technologies are directly influenced by the physical properties of the fluid and flow velocity profile. Ultrasonic flowmeters have evolved over the past decades and today is one of the most promising technologies for flow measurement under different process conditions in the oil and natural gas industry. The advantages of ultrasonic flowmeters are specially related to its non- intrusiveness and low pressure drop, combined with low uncertainty and high turn-down. In addition, they are little susceptible to mechanical wear and can be used in bidirectional flow measurements. In short, an ultrasonic flowmeter works as a flow velocity meter and its performance is related to its design (path topology and algorithms of integration) and installation and process conditions (temperature, pressure, wall roughness, flow regime, etc). This work evaluates the theoretical performance of a hypothetical 6 inches, 8-path transit time ultrasonic flowmeter (two 4-path gauss-jacobi distributed crossed planes). Such evaluation is carried out through CFD numerical analysis, using Ansys Workbench® software. A common pipe installation design found in oil and natural gas industry is studied. The analyzed fluids are water and 4 different viscosities oils, with a Reynolds number ranging from 492 to 1.2x10^6. The results show the effects of different installation designs on the velocity field, as well as the formation of secondary flows and generation of vortices. Furthermore, it is also observed that the studied flowmeter design has a great ability to minimize, or even eliminate, rotational effects in the flow. However, the distortion of the velocity profile can still significantly affect its performance.
Keywords
ultrasonic flow meter, Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Numerical Methods, Turbulent flow
