Flow Conditioners for Pipelines with Sources of Acoustic Noise

The most popular way to transport natural gas is to use pipelines. However, complex spatial configuration of pipeline systems, as well as regulating devices and gate valves, break the uniformity and symmetry of the velocity profile, induce swirling flows, generate acoustic disturbance, and promote a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Thermal engineering 2023-11, Vol.70 (11), p.885-894
Main Authors: Dushin, N. S., Valeev, A. A., Kolchin, S. A., Dushina, O. A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Acoustic noise
Acoustics
Configurations
Diameters
Engineering
Engineering Thermodynamics
Flowmeters
Fluid flow
Frequency ranges
Gas pipelines
Gate valves
Heat and Mass Transfer
Measurement
Metering
Natural gas
Optimization
Properties of Working Fluids and Materials
Reynolds number
Self-similarity
Swirling
Unsteady flow
Velocity
Velocity distribution
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The most popular way to transport natural gas is to use pipelines. However, complex spatial configuration of pipeline systems, as well as regulating devices and gate valves, break the uniformity and symmetry of the velocity profile, induce swirling flows, generate acoustic disturbance, and promote amplification of acoustic noise. It is almost impossible to estimate and take into account all these effects in gas metering. Therefore, the measurement uncertainty in complex conditions can be as high as 20%. It is reasonable to employ flow conditioners (FC) in order to increase the measurement accuracy. Their function is to form the flow with known characteristics. The existing FC models, however, were designed to deal with a limited set of flow histories and typically require calibration in combination with a flow meter. There are almost no FCs able to deal with a wide spectrum of flow histories and mitigate the effect of acoustics on the measurement accuracy. The study submits an approach to the design of the flow passage inside FC that addresses the described problems. The proposed FC has a cartridge containing a set of coaxial perforated streamwise cylinders nested within one another with a varied pitch along the diameter. An experimental model of the device demonstrated its effectiveness in velocity profile conditioning and reproducibility of profiles in steady and unsteady flows in pipelines of different spatial configurations. The Reynolds number range considered in the study spans from the lower threshold, at which the majority of flow meters operate, to the values at which the flow becomes self-similar. The acoustic efficiency was estimated for the frequency range of 5 Hz to 120 kHz. In general, the experimental model met all challenges successfully. At the same time, the shape of velocity profiles downstream of the device is somewhat different from the developed velocity profile in straight pipes. This problem will require optimization of the device geometry, which will be addressed in the future research.
ISSN:0040-6015
1555-6301
DOI:10.1134/S0040601523110058