Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mel705 27
Mel705 27
P M V Subbarao
Professor
Mechanical Engineering Department
b gVb gVb Fd
• Where Vb is the volume and
b is the density of the bob,
is the density of the fluid, and
• g is the gravitational acceleration:
• The drag force results from the flow field surrounding the bob
and particularly from the wake of the bob.
• In flow analyses based on similarity principles, these influences
are accounted for by empirical coefficient CL or CT in the drag
law for:
•where UIN is the velocity at the rotameter inlet, and the tube diameter
D is represented by its value at the inlet, equal to the bob diameter Db.
• Through the Reynolds number regimes of laminar or turbulent flow,
and particularly important for the rotameter flow regimes with strong
or weak viscosity dependence can be distinguished.
•It has been found to be practical for rotameters to use an alternative
characteristic number, the Ruppel number, defined as:
where mb = bD3b is the mass of the bob.
The advantage of the Ruppel number is its independence of the flow rate.
Since the Ruppel number contains only fluid properties and the mass and
the density of the bob, it is a constant for a particular instrument.
Design Charts for Laminar Rotameters
Design Charts for Turbulent Rotameters
(1) End fitting — flange
shown;
(2) flowmeter body;
(3) rotation pickup —
magnetic, reluctancetype
shown;
(4) permanent magnet;
(5) pickup cold wound on
pole piece;
(6) rotor blade;
(7) rotor hub;
(8) Rotor shaft bearing —
journal type shown;
(9) rotor shaft;
(10) diffuser support and flow
straightener;
(11) diffuser;
(12) flow conditioning plate
(dotted) — optional with
some meters.
Theory
• There are two approaches described in the current
literature for analyzing axial turbine performance.
• The first approach describes the fluid driving torque in
terms of momentum exchange, while the second describes
it in terms of aerodynamic lift via airfoil theory.
• The former approach has the advantage that it readily
produces analytical results describing basic operation,
some of which have not appeared via airfoil analysis.
• The latter approach has the advantage that it allows more
complete descriptions using fewer approximations.
• However, it is mathematically intensive and leads rapidly
into computer-generated solutions.
Eliminating the time dimension from the left-hand-side quantity
reduces it to the number of rotor rotations per unit fluid volume,
which is essentially the flowmeter K factor specified by most
manufacturers.
• In the ideal situation, the meter response is perfectly linear and
determined only by geometry.
• In some flowmeter designs, the rotor blades are helically twisted to
improve efficiency.
• This is especially true of blades with large radius ratios, (R/a).
• If the flow velocity profile is assumed to be flat, then the blade
angle in this case can be described by tan = Constant X r.
• This is sometimes called the “ideal” helical blade.
• In practice, there are instead a number of rotor retarding torques of
varying relative magnitudes.
• Under steady flow, the rotor assumes a speed that satisfies the
following equilibrium:
• The difference between the actual rotor speed, r, and the ideal
rotor speed, ri , is the rotor slip velocity due to the combined
effect of all the rotor retarding torques , and as a result of
which the fluid velocity vector is deflected through an exit or
swirl angle, .
• Denoting the radius variable by r, and equating the total rate of
change of angular momentum of the fluid passing through the
rotor to the retarding torque, one obtains:
e Blv
The velocity of the conductor is
proportional to the mean flow velocity
of the liquid.
Hence, the induced voltage becomes:
e BDv
e BDv
Q Av 2
Dv
4
4 BQ
e
D
Ultrasonic Flowmeters
• There are various types of ultrasonic flowmeters in use for
discharge measurement:
• (1) Transit time: This is today’s state-of-the-art technology and
most widely used type.
• This type of ultrasonic flowmeter makes use of the difference
in the time for a sonic pulse to travel a fixed distance.
• First against the flow and then in the direction of flow.
• Transmit time flowmeters are sensitive to suspended solids or
air bubbles in the fluid.
• (2) Doppler: This type is more popular and less expensive, but
is not considered as accurate as the transit time flowmeter.
• It makes use of the Doppler frequency shift caused by sound
reflected or scattered from suspensions in the flow path and is
therefore more complementary than competitive to transit time
flowmeters.
Principle of transit time flowmeters.
Transit Time Flowmeter
• Principle of Operation
• The acoustic method of discharge measurement is based on the
fact that the propagation velocity of an acoustic wave and the
flow velocity are summed vectorially.
• This type of flowmeter measures the difference in transit times
between two ultrasonic pulses transmitted upstream t21 and
downstream t12 across the flow.
• If there are no transverse flow components in the conduit, these
two transmit times of acoustic pulses are given by:
Since the transducers are generally used both as transmitters and
receivers, the difference in travel time can be determined with the
same pair of transducers.
Thus, the mean axial velocity along the path is given by:
Example