Flowmeter challenges
Traditional mechanical flowmeters, such as differential pressure flowmeters, positive displacement flowmeters, and variable area flowmeters, are already in the stage of popularization, with fierce price competition, decreasing profit margins, less technological innovation, and relatively mature markets. . Frost & Sullivan believes that achieving product differentiation and customized production is an important breakthrough for manufacturers in the fierce competition in mature markets. Based on Frost & Sullivan's analysis of the needs of industry users, the user community expects manufacturers to provide automated equipment that will bring tangible benefits to the production process. Users will have specific requirements in the application process, such as: application in the special environment of the petrochemical industry, the need for rugged design and explosion-proof certification; user demand for Coriolis flowmeter designed for straight pipe. How to effectively obtain the actual needs of users and improve the traditional products is a challenge to the manufacturer's differentiated and customized production process.
Guiding users to accept and use new technology flow meters, such as ultrasonic flow meters, electromagnetic flow meters, and thermal mass flow meters, is another challenge for manufacturers to make the market bigger and stronger. In fact, the new technology flowmeter mentioned above has been developed and applied more than ten years ago. How to make customers realize that using the new technology flowmeter can effectively improve the production efficiency is an important issue for manufacturers.
In addition, new technology flowmeters are constantly being introduced into various industries, and fast and efficient after-sales service is also crucial for manufacturers. In particular, the use of Flowfield based on Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus PA bus has certain requirements for software technology. Effective services can provide users with more suitable solutions and close to users.
The working principle of the impeller type flowmeter is that the impeller is placed in the fluid to be measured, and is rotated by the impact of the fluid flow, and the flow rate is reflected by the speed of the impeller rotation. Typical impeller flow meters are water meters and turbine flow meters, which may be of mechanical transmission output or electrical pulse output. Generally, the water meter output of the mechanical transmission has low accuracy and the error is about ±2%, but the structure is simple and the cost is low. The domestic production has been mass-produced, standardized, generalized and serialized. The accuracy of the turbine flowmeter for electrical pulse signal output is high, with a typical error of ±0.2% to 0.5%.
Differential pressure flowmeter (variable pressure drop flowmeter)
The differential pressure flowmeter consists of a primary device and a secondary device. The primary device is called a flow measuring element and is installed in the pipe of the fluid to be measured, generating a pressure difference proportional to the flow rate (flow rate) for the secondary device to display the flow rate. The secondary device is called a display instrument. It receives the differential pressure signal generated by the measuring component and converts it to the corresponding flow for display. The primary device of the differential pressure flow meter is often a throttling device or a dynamic pressure measuring device (piteron, constant velocity tube, etc.). The secondary device is equipped with various mechanical, electronic and combined differential pressure gauges with flow display instruments. The differential pressure sensitive components of the differential pressure gauge are mostly elastic components. Since the differential pressure and the flow rate are in a square root relationship, the flow display instrument is equipped with an open square device to linearize the flow scale. Most meters also have a flow accumulator to display cumulative flow for economic accounting. This method of measuring flow using differential pressure has a long history and is relatively mature. Generally, countries all over the world use it in more important occasions, accounting for about 70% of various flow measurement methods. The flow measurement of the main steam, feed water, condensate, etc. of the power plant is based on this meter.
Several problems of solutions
Recalculating the differential pressure scale
Temperature and pressure compensation can only reduce the measurement error, not only can not solve the problem fundamentally, but also the measurement signal exceeds 20mA, resulting in steam leakage measurement. The transmitter measurement signal exceeds 20 mA, indicating that the actual measured differential pressure signal ΔP exceeds the design differential pressure value.
Increase temperature and pressure compensation
When the temperature and pressure of the steam change, the density of the steam changes, and the steam flow measurement produces an error. Measurement error can be reduced by temperature and pressure compensation. Since the temperature of the saturated steam is a single-valued function of the pressure, the temperature and pressure compensation of the saturated steam can be pressure compensated or temperature compensated. Because the pressure signal detection is sensitive and the compensation accuracy is high, it is compensated by pressure and realized by DCS.
Conclusion
Steam is a special medium. As the pressure and temperature change, the density of steam changes. Therefore, it is necessary to compensate for temperature and pressure. When the pressure and temperature fluctuation of the steam are not large, that is, when the operating condition parameters deviate from the design parameters and the influence on the measurement is small, the temperature and pressure compensation measures can achieve the purpose of accurate measurement. However, when the operating parameters deviate too much from the design parameters or the operating parameters fluctuate frequently and are too large, even with the temperature and pressure compensation, it is difficult to meet the measurement accuracy requirements. At this point, only differential pressure or flow can be recalculated for a particular throttling element.