What is an ORIFICE

METER?
What are its PARTS?
How does it WORK?
What are the PRINCIPLES
governing orifice meter?
CALCULATIONS
What are its
APPLICATIONS?

 Orifice

Meter is a flow measuring

device used for calculating the pressure
drop, flow rate and behavior of the fluid
moving through the pipe.

It

is an instrument that measures fluid

flow by recording differential pressure
across a restriction placed in the flow
stream and the static or actual pressure
acting on the system.

Vena Contracta
Orifice Plate

An orifice plate is a device used for measuring

flow rate, for reducing pressure or for restricting
flow (in the latter two cases it is often called a
restriction plate). It is a thin plate with a hole in
it, which is usually placed in a pipe.

Vena contracta is the point in a fluid stream

where the diameter of the stream is the least,
and fluid velocity is at its maximum, such as in
the case of a stream issuing out of a nozzle, or
orifice. It is a place where the cross section area
is minimum .

As the fluid approaches the orifice the pressure

increases slightly and then drops suddenly as the orifice is
passed. It continues to drop until the vena contracta is
reached and then gradually increases until at
approximately 5 to 8 diameters downstream a maximum
pressure point is reached that will be lower than the
pressure upstream of the orifice. The decrease in pressure
as the fluid passes thru the orifice is a result of the
increased velocity of the gas passing thru the reduced area
of the orifice. When the velocity decreases as the fluid
leaves the orifice the pressure increases and tends to
return to its original level.

All of the pressure loss is not recovered

because of friction and turbulence losses in the stream.
The pressure drop across the orifice increases when the
rate of flow increases. When there is no flow there is no
differential. The differential pressure is proportional to
the square of the velocity, it therefore follows that if all
other factors remain constant, then the differential is
proportional to the square of the rate of flow.

An orifice plate has the same principle as a

Venturi nozzle, namely Bernoulli's principle which
says that there is a relationship between the
pressure of the fluid and the velocity of the fluid.
When the velocity increases, the pressure
decreases and vice versa.
The reduction of the cross section of the flowing
stream in passing through the orifice increases the
velocity head at the expense of the pressure head,
and the reduction in pressure between the taps is
measured by a manometer. Bernoulli's equation
provides a basis for correlating the increase in
velocity head with the decrease in pressure head.

Bernoullis equation states that pressure drop

across the orifice plate is directly proportional to the
volumetric flow rate passing through the orifice
plate. A restriction orifice also works on the same
principle, but serves a different purpose. The main
difference between orifice plate and restriction
orifice is their usage. Restriction orifice is used for
killing pressure in a pipe by increasing fluid velocity.
Restriction orifice and orifice plates are similar in
structure and both are based on Bernoullis
equation.

Orifice meters are one of the oldest and most trusted

meters in use in flow measurement.

Orifice plates are most commonly used to measure

flow rates in pipes, when the fluid is single-phase
(rather than being a mixture of gases and liquids, or
of liquids and solids) and well-mixed, the flow is
continuous rather than pulsating, the fluid occupies
the entire pipe (precluding silt or trapped gas), the
flow profile is even and well-developed and the fluid
and flow rate meet certain other conditions.

Orifice plates are also used to reduce pressure or

restrict flow, in which case they are often called
restriction plates

Once the orifice plate is designed and installed, the

flow rate can often be indicated with an acceptably
low uncertainty simply by taking the square root of
the differential pressure across the orifice's pressure
tappings and applying an appropriate constant.

Even compressible flows of gases that vary in

pressure and temperature may be measured with
acceptable uncertainty by merely taking the square
roots of the absolute pressure and/or temperature,
depending on the purpose of the measurement and
the costs of ancillary instrumentation.

 Orifice

plates are most commonly used for

continuous measurement of fluid in pipes. They
are also used in some small river systems to
measure flow at locations where the river passes
through a culvert or drain.

In

the natural environment large orifice plates

are used to control onward flow in flood relief
dams. However, in floods, the flow rate rises and
floods out the orifice plate which can then only
pass a flow determined by the physical
dimensions of the orifice.