Numerical Simulation of Thermal Transit-Time Flow Meter for High Temperature, Corrosive and Irradiation Environment

In the environments of high temperature (>300 degrees C - 1000 degrees C), corrosive and even irradiation application, the challenges of providing reliable and accurate flow rate measurement is significant. In comparing with many other existing technologies for normal operation environments, correlated thermal transit-time flow meter show its advantages of resolving the challenges encountered in those harsh conditions. The correlated thermal signals can be detected by two separated thermal sensors (for example, thermocouples) in series alignment along the pipe, and derive the flow rate. It was evaluated to have accurate measurement for small pipe at slow fluid speed. In the higher flow rate and big pipe size application, this technology shows its weakness due to the limitations associated with slow response time of thermal sensor, dimension, and low strength of thermal signal. In this paper, we present a sophisticated layout of thermal transit-time flow meter with numerical simulation and experiments. By numerical results, we observed that the obtained flow in the bypass route is linearly proportional to the main flow over higher range of flows showing that the measured flow is successfully extended to high range and with stable and accurate measurement results.