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and Instrumentation
Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 181187
www.elsevier.com/locate/flowmeasinst
Received 2 November 2006; received in revised form 10 October 2007; accepted 8 November 2007
Abstract
Calibration tests of UdFlow, the ultrasonic pulse-Doppler flowmeter manufactured by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, were conducted at
the national standard loop in Mexico, CENAM (The Centro National de Metrologia), in order to evaluate the accuracy of the flowmeter. Four
ultrasonic transducers were mounted circumferentially on the surface of 100 and 200 mm stainless steel pipes to measure four velocity profiles.
Flow rates can be obtained by integrating each measuring line and averaging them. Air was injected upstream of the measuring point to provide
bubbles as ultrasonic reflectors. Tests were conducted at five different flow rates with Reynolds numbers from 200,000 to 1,200,000. Tests were
repeated six times at each flow rate to evaluate repeatability. In addition, a take-off and put-back test was carried out on the 100 mm pipe at a
flow rate of 3000 L/min to evaluate reproducibility. The values of the CENAM loop are based on the average of weighing time while those of the
ultrasonic-Doppler flow velocity-profile flowmeter are based on the time average of instantaneous values. The calibration tests found a deviation
of less than 0.3% between the two devices in terms of the average of the values recorded in six rounds of measurement. Measurement at a different
Reynolds number showed that the overall average deviation between the two devices was less than 0.3%.
c 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Ultrasonic-Doppler; Velocity profile; Flowmeter; Industrial application; Calibration
1. Introduction
The feedwater (FW) systems of power plants generally
utilize fluids at high temperatures and/or high pressures within
large pipes. Flow rate measurements are usually made with
meters such as flow nozzles or transit-time ultrasonic flow
meters that employ profile factors (PF), which are correction
factors used to adjust the measured value in the field based
on a factory test. However, determining the PF under the same
flow conditions and configurations as the large pipe diameters
and curves found in the field is impractical, so certain errors
in measurement arise. In fact, it is impossible at the present
time to determine a PF by a high-precision calibration loop
using a weighing method under such high temperature and
pressure conditions as those found in the typical FW system.
Consequently, the PF has to be determined with a Reynolds
number (Re) smaller by an order of magnitude than that in
Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 45 613 6156; fax: +81 45 613 7899.
182
Average
flowrate of
UdFlow
(L/min)
Deviation Combined
(%)
standard
uncertainty
(%)
Expanded
uncertainty
(%)
69.611
69.634
0.032
0.308
0.1541
the flow rate of the fluid. This is also true for a conventional
one-point ultrasonic-Doppler flowmeter. Accordingly, these
conventional methods have only a limited scope as they are
effective only in measuring fully developed steady-state flow.
In other words, these methods rely on an approximation that
is really applicable only in a narrow flow range, the so-called
reference conditions [6].
Calibration tests were performed at the national standard
loops of four countries in order to validate the accuracy of
UdFlow, which is based on the measurement of line velocity
profiles, thereby eliminating PFs and giving a more accurate
determination of flow rates.
2. Calibration tests at NIST, NMIJ AND NMI
2.1. Tests at NIST
The flow of water per unit of time can be determined by
collecting the fluid flowing down the test section in a weighing
tank for a set period of time and dividing the collected volume
by the time elapsed. The nominal measurement uncertainty
of the test loop at The National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) in the U.S. is 0.12%. Fig. 2 shows a
schematic diagram of the test loop at NIST and Fig. 3 shows
a photograph.
In these tests, the water flow was measured at the point
where it reached the stage of full development. The UdFlow
was found to match the approved values of the standard loop
with sufficient accuracy. Table 1 compares the approved values
of the NIST standard loop and the corresponding data from the
UdFlow at Re = 400,000. The values of the NIST loop were
Table 2
Flow rates measured by a reference meter and by UdFlow at NMIJ standard
loop
Average
flowrate of
reference
meter
(L/min)
Average
flowrate of
UdFlow
(L/min)
Deviation Combined
(%)
standard
uncertainty
(%)
Expanded
uncertainty
(%)
2000.5
1512.7
986.1
2008.9
1508.2
984.6
0.421
0.294
0.147
0.288
0.078
0.178
0.1442
0.0390
0.0890
183
184
Table 3
Flow rates measured by a reference meter and by UdFlow in the NMI standard
loop for water
Average
flowrate of
reference
meter
(L/min)
Average
flowrate of
UdFlow
(L/min)
Deviation Combined
(%)
standard
uncertainty
(%)
Expanded
uncertainty
(%)
1275.2
953.8
630.8
1276.7
953.6
632.0
0.120
0.014
0.179
0.556
0.775
0.611
0.2779
0.3873
0.3055
Table 4
Flow rates measured by a reference meter and UdFlow in the NMI standard
loop for kerosene
Average
flowrate of
reference
meter
(L/min)
Average
flowrate of
UdFlow
(L/min)
Deviation Combined
(%)
standard
uncertainty
(%)
1280.8
954.6
642.9
1276.5
956.2
639.4
0.333
0.169
0.534
0.0960
0.3632
0.1919
Expanded
uncertainty
(%)
0.192
0.726
0.384
Fig. 12. Mounting for four beam ultrasonic transducers on the test pipe.
Table 5
Ultrasonic parameters in the CENAM test
Ultrasonic parameters
Value
Basic frequency
Pulse repetition frequency
Cycle per pulse
Sampling interval per profile
Number of data points per profile
Number of pulse repetitions
1 MHz
10003000 Hz
4 waves/pulse
250 ms
128
128
q jprimary standard
,
q j meter
(2)
where, :
qvprimarystandard volumetric flow rate determined by the
primary standard under line conditions
qvmeter time-averaged volumetric flow rate measured by
the meter under line conditions, over the calibration interval.
The arithmetic mean value of MF for a series of
measurements at flow rate q j is defined by Eq. (3).
MF j (q j ) = MF j =
n
1X
MFi (q j ).
n i=1
n
2
1 X
MFi (q j ) MF j (q j ) .
n 1 i=1
1
sdm(MF j ) = s(MF j ),
n
(5)
(6)
(7)
(9)
(3)
185
(4)
2.4.6. Reproducibility
Reproducibility is defined in terms of the standard deviation
of the mean of multiple sets of runs performed under essentially
the same flow conditions after specific, typical changes in test
conditions given by Eq. (10).
v
u
m
X
u
2
1
sdn[MF j ] = t
MFi (q j ) MF j ,
(10)
m(m 1) i=1
186
Table 6
Summary of test results with 100 mm pipe for five different flow rates with six
runs at each flow rate
Average
flowrate of
reference
meter
(L/min)
Average
flowrate of
UdFlow
(L/min)
Deviation Combined
(%)
standard
uncertainty
(%)
998.5
1502.2
1998.4
2497.2
3001.4
998.1
1504.1
1994.9
2499.8
3005.6
0.035
0.124
0.174
0.105
0.139
0.0993
0.0716
0.0702
0.0427
0.0412
Expanded
uncertainty
(%)
0.199
0.143
0.140
0.085
0.082
Table 7
Summary of test results with 200 mm pipe for five different flow rates with six
runs at each flow rate
Average
flowrate of
reference
meter
(L/min)
Average
flowrate of
UdFlow
(L/min)
Deviation Combined
(%)
standard
uncertainty
(%)
Expanded
uncertainty
(%)
4000.7
6006.8
8005.2
9998.6
12002.1
4010.1
6012.0
7998.6
9980.5
12011.4
0.233
0.087
0.083
0.182
0.078
0.150
0.089
0.097
0.139
0.106
0.0748
0.0446
0.0486
0.0695
0.0528
Fig. 13. Example of a velocity profile at CENAM test for 100 mm pipe with
the flowrate of 3000 L/min.
3. Concluding remarks
Calibration tests of UDF were conducted at four national
standard loops: NIST in the United States, NMIJ in Japan,
NMI in the Netherlands, and CENAM in Mexico, to evaluate
the accuracy of this new type of flow-metering system. The
velocity profiles at NIST, NMIJ, and NMI showed deviations
within 0.5%. Following improvements to the UDF system,
the maximum spreads in individual MF test results in the mean
values from the UDF are from 0.17% to +0.14% for 100 mm
diameter pipe and from 0.18% to +0.23% for 200 mm
diameter pipe over the range of Reynolds numbers tested at
CENAM. At CENAM the short-term stability (repeatability)
and longer-term stability (reproducibility) are both considered
good, i.e., better than 0.3% under these test conditions.
Further testing will be needed to better quantify reproducibility
characteristics.
The expanded uncertainty for the UDF meter factor in these
tests at CENAM is bounded by 0.26% as a worst case for
100 mm pipe and by 0.19% as a worst case for 200 mm pipe.
These values are computed for 95% confidence levels with a
coverage factor k of 2.57. The air bubble injection used for these
tests had a negligible effect on the CENAM primary standard
measurements.
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187