Experimental verification of the kinetic differential pressure method for flow measurements

ABSTRACT

The accuracy of the kinetic differential pressure (KDP) method for measuring unsteady flow in pressurized fluid conduits is investigated in this paper. The method is based on the linearized one-dimensional governing equations for pipe transient flow and utilizes two pressure measurements to estimate the unsteady flow. Experiments conducted on the pipeline aparatus in the hydraulics laboratory at the University of Canterbury are used to test and validate the operation of the technique. The validation is conducted over a range of flow Reynolds numbers and flow pertubation sizes. The results show that the method can accurately capture flow pulses in a system within the range of Reynolds number considered in this study. It was also found that the KDP flow measurement method is sensitive to the accuracy of the input parameters and numerical distortions were introduced into the flow response when the input parameters were incorrect. A robust method for correcting these distortions is required before this method can be applied in general flow measurement applications.

Keywords:

• Flow measurements
• prediction accuracy
• transfer matrix
• transient flow
• unsteady flow