WATER FLOW METER USING NEW ORIFICE PLATE ARRANGEMENT

The orifice plate is the most extensively used flow meter in industrialized fluids flow measurement, due to its simplicity. The current research provides a new design and development of the orifice plate flowmeter inspired by the Venturi tube design recognized for its high performance and precision. To evaluate the performance of the new flowmeter, a numerical analysis was conducted using the k-omega shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model. The results acquired, compared to the experimental results, revealed a reduced pressure loss and an increase in its discharge coefficient, and an expansion of the turbulence zone downstream. These results generate kinetic energy for the financial advantage of the transported fluid while reducing the use of discharging machines. To compare the accuracy of the k-omega SST and the k-epsilon turbulence models in capturing the turbulence, the pressure loss was analyzed at three different inlet velocity values and then compared to the correlation standard ISO 5167 (2003), which calculates the pressure drop. The results of the simulation under the k-omega SST turbulence model are the closest to those calculated analytically, resulting in literature compliance. A comparison of the change in the discharge coefficient as a function of the Reynolds number of flows through the orifice plate between the results obtained by correlation and those obtained from the numerical analysis showed that the numerical results are more accurate and closer to the experimental value than the analytical one. © 2022 by Begell House.