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ACMME 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 394 (2018) 032049 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/394/3/032049
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Performance Evaluation and Analysis of a New Flow

Conditioner Based on CFD

Guoyu Chen and Guixiong Liu*

School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, South China University of
Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China

*Corresponding author e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. Accurate flow measurement is one of the key aspects of energy saving, while
flow conditioner is an important part for accurate flow measurement. flow conditioner
is an effective device in accelerating distortion flow fully developed. Its performance
affects the accuracy of a flow meter downstream. In this study, the performance of
Etoile flow conditioner downstream a vortex generator is discussed, finding that
removing the center area vanes and adding vanes near the inner wall could modify the
conditioner’s performance. Then an octagonal star shaped improvement method is
proposed according to the performance analysis of Etoile flow conditioner. With CFD
(computational fluid dynamics) technology, the scope of the octagonal star shaped
vanes added is demonstrated. Finally, a modified flow conditioner configuration based
on the octagonal star shaped improvement method proposed and its performance are
delineated. From the results obtained, it is effectual modifying Etoile flow conditioner
with the octagonal star shaped improvement method.

1. Introduction
Accurate flow measurement is one of the key aspects of energy saving, while flowmeter is the main
equipment for flow measurement. Thus, the accuracy of flowmeter has a direct relationship with
energy saving. However, many disturbances like value, contracted pipe and elbow are commonly exist
in practical pipeline systems, which will undoubtedly spark off flow distortion [1, 2]. One typical
method using to eliminate the flow distortion is applying sufficient straight pipe upstream a flowmeter.
According to A.G.A Report No. 9, 50Dpipe length of straight pipeline is required when asymmetric
flow exists, while a 200Dpipe length of straight pipeline is needed to eliminate the effect of turbulence
[3]. Applying such a long straight pipe is hardly practical while considering space and cost. Another
common way to eliminate the flow distortion is to install a flow conditioner upstream a flowmeter [4,
5]. It does not need such a long straight pipe as A.G.A Report No. 9 reported while a flow conditioner
exists [6]. Etoile flow conditioner has been used for years and many researchers have studied how to
modify its performance. McHugh A., Kinghorn F. C., and Dyet W. D. investigated the performance of
Etoile flow conditioner downstream two 90° elbows in perpendicular planes, finding Etoile was
helpful to remove swirls but the flow downstream was still asymmetric [7]. Then the group researched
on how the length of Etoile affected the flow conditioner’s performance, drawing a conclusion that at
least 1Dpipe long it is, can Etoile totally remove swirls. Besides, 5Dpipe ~14Dpipe length is need between
Etoile and orifice plate if you want to hold the effect on orifice coefficient less than 5% [8]. Laws E.

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ACMME 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 394 (2018) 032049 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/394/3/032049
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M. and Ouazzane A. K. cut off the central portion of Etoile flow conditioner changing it into an ‘open’
version, and found out that the ‘open’ version could be used upstream of another flow conditioner to
produce improved overall performance [9]. Then Ouazzane A. K. and Barigou M. found a vaned-plate
flow conditioner, consist of 6 vanes attached to a 70% porosity plate i.e. the ‘open’ version described
in [9], could improve the performance of the meter [10]. Laribi B., Youcefi A. and Matene E.
investigated the performance of Etoile flow conditioner downstream a valve maintained at 100% and
50% open with numerical simulation, finding when the valve is 50% open, Etoile flow conditioner
would achieve the best performance at 2Dpipe length [11, 12]. How would the flow conditioner perform
if more vanes are added in Etoile is still worth investigation.
CFD (short for Computational Fluid Dynamics) technique has been widely used to investigate a
flow conditioner. Gonzalez-Trejo J et al evaluated the effect of the thickness and length of the flow
conditioner on the overall performance of the submerged nozzle with CFD technique, finding out flow
conditioner should be as thin as possible [13]. Liu R et al used CFD technique to explore how a VAV
flow conditioner regulate the velocity profile upstream of the VAV airflow sensor and increase the
VAV airflow measurement accuracy, pointing out that it is a common way to evaluate the
performance of a flow conditioner by examining the velocity profile downstream of it [14]. Thus, in
this paper, CFD technique is applied to investigate the flow conditioner’s performance.
The outline of this paper is as follows. In Section 2, two kinds of velocity errors are calculated to
evaluate the flow conditioner’s performance. Firstly, how to sample velocities with CFD technique is
described. Then, the formulas to calculate the velocity errors are performed, using the sampling
velocities. Thirdly, the physical meanings of the velocity errors are defined. In Section 3, analysis of
Etoile flow conditioner performance is performed. Firstly, the pipeline configuration and boundary
conditions of simulation are introduced. Then, the performance of Etoile conditioner at Plane: Z=5Dp
is discussed to find out the factors that may influent the performance of Etoile conditioner. In Section
4, in response to those factors discussed in Section 3, a new conditioner structure modified from Etoile
is proposed, and how the new conditioner performs is analyzed. In Section 5, conclusions are given
and the future work direction is elaborated.

2. Flow Conditioner Evaluation Method

The fully developed velocity profile is the aim of installing a flow conditioner, thus it is reasonable to
evaluate a conditioner’s efficiency via the velocity distribution. In this paper, focusing on the velocity
profile, the error of velocity between fully developed flow and the flow downstream flow conditioner
is calculated to analyze the conditioner’s performance, where the fully developed flow is obtained
from straight pipe without any disturbances. As it is impractical to integrate all velocities distributed
downstream a flow conditioner, the discrete sampling method is adopted to calculate the velocity
errors. With CFD technique, two kinds of velocity errors are calculated through sampling velocities
from different locations. The sampling points’ distribution is shown in Figure 1. The Cartesian
coordinate system O-XYZ is established on the downstream surface of flow conditioner, where the Z
axis is the pipeline centerline. Forty-nine sample points are scattered in each cross-section Plane: Z=Zk,
and they are numbered counterclockwise. The velocity errors are defined as below.

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ACMME 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 394 (2018) 032049 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/394/3/032049
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Figure 1. Coordinate system and sample points distribution at Plane: Z=Zk

A.   _ zk ,ri : Average velocity deviation of Pitch circle ri at Plane: Z=Zk.   _ zk ,ri is used to analyze
velocity distribution at a certain pipeline corss-section. According to Figure 1,   _ zk ,ri is calculated as

 
 _ z k , r0  v0  v0 , (1)

1 12  
 _ z k , r1
  vi  vi ,
12 i 1
(2)

1 24  
_ z k , r2   vi  vi ,
12 i 13
(3)

1 36  
 _ z k , r3   vi  vi ,
12 i  25
(4)

1 48  
 _ z k , r4
  vi  vi ,
12 i 37
(5)

 
Where vi is velocity with a flow conditioner; vi is velocity fully developed.
  _ zk , ri displays how the velocity errors distributes at Plane: Z=Zk. It could be helpful to find out
the week points of a flow conditioner. If   _ zk ,ri goes large, it means the structure at the corresponding
positions may need improvement.
B.   _ zk : the accumulated velocity deviation at Plane: Z=Zk.   _ zk is used to analyze how velocity
errors distribute as Zk changes. It is calculated as

1 48  
_ z  k  vi  vi .
49 i  0
(6)

  _ zk displays the distribution of the velocity errors downstream a flow conditioner. It could be
helpful to find out the optimal location for installing a flow meter, and could be used to compare the
performance of different conditioner structures as Zk increases.
  _ zk , ri and   _ zk are simply calculated through sampling velocities, and they can give an
expression of the distribution of velocity errors. Thus, it would be reasonable to investigate the
performance of a conditioner by using   _ zk ,ri and   _ zk . Besides, as CFD technique is applied, none

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ACMME 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 394 (2018) 032049 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/394/3/032049
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particular flowmeter is need, while a particular flowmeter is necessary without CFD. Therefore,
  _ zk ,ri and   _ zk are convenient and suitable for different kinds of flow conditioners.

3. Analysis of Etoile Flow Conditioner performance based on CFD

With CFD (computational fluid dynamics) technology, simulation of Etoile flow conditioner
downstream a vortex generator [15] is performed. Figure 2 demonstrates the pipeline configuration of
simulation, where Etoile is installed 5Dpipe downstream the vortex generator, and 5Dpipe long straight
pipe is set upstream the vortex generator while 100Dpipe long straight pipe is applied downstream
Etoile. The diameter of pipeline is 50mm, i.e. Dpipe=50mm. The flow medium is incompressible water,
whose density is 996.7kg/m3 and dynamic viscosity is 8.54×10-4Pa.s. The operating pressure is
0.6MPa and the flow temperature is 300K. The inlet velocity is 1m/s or 10m/s. Thus, the Reynolds
number is 5.84×104 or 5.84×105, and the k-ε model is adopted.

Figure 2. The pipeline configuration of simulation.

Figure 3 shows the distribution of   _ zk ,ri at Plane: Z=5Dp. Using   _ zk , ri  E  stands for the   _ zk , ri
of Etoile conditioner, and   _ zk ,ri  C  stands for the   _ zk ,ri of no conditioner, it is demonstrated in both
Fig3(a) and Fig3(b) that   _ zk ,ri  E     _ zk ,ri  C  while ri Dp  0.1 . This phenomenon might be caused
by the vanes in region ri Dp  0.1 . That is to say, removing the vanes in region ri Dp  0.1 might be
helpful to get better velocity distribution. Similar idea has been put into practice in [16]. Besides,
while ri Dp  0.3 ,   _ zk , ri  E  gradually increases. It might be in region ri Dp  0.3 , the vanes
distribution is too sparse. Therefore, adding vanes in region ri Dp  0.3 is likely helpful in stopping
  _ zk , ri  E  increasing again while ri Dp  0.3 .

(a)

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ACMME 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 394 (2018) 032049 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/394/3/032049
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(b)
Figure 3. Average velocity deviation of Pitch circle ri at Plane: Z=5Dp; (a) Re  5.84  104 .
(b) Re  5.84  105 .

4. New Configuration and its performance’s analysis

Based on the analysis of Etoile conditioner performance above, an octagonal star shaped improvement
structure shown in Figure 4 is proposed. The vanes in region ri Dp  0.1 are removed, and eight vanes
forming an octagonal star are added in ri Dp  0.3 . The distance between adding vanes and the center
of pipe cross-section is defined as hvane. Changing the value of hvane we can get vary flow conditioners.
In this paper, four cases with different values of hvane (CASE I: hvane =0.3Dpipe; CASE II: hvane
=0.325Dpipe; CASE III: hvane =0.354Dpipe; CASE IV: hvane =0.4Dpipe ;) are studied to investigate how
hvane affects the flow conditioner’s performance.

Figure 4. Modified flow conditioner configuration.

With the same pipeline configuration of simulation shown in Figure 2 but changing the flow
conditioner, simulations of CASE I~IV are performed in the same boundary conditions with analyzing
the Etoile conditioner.
Figure 5 demonstrates the distribution of average velocity deviation of Pitch circle ri at Plane:
Z=5Dp. Use   _ zk , ri  E  ,   _ zk , ri  I  ,   _ zk ,ri  II  ,   _ zk , ri  III  ,   _ zk , ri  IV  and   _ zk ,ri  C  standing for the
  _ zk ,ri of Etoile conditioner, CASE I, CASE II, CASE III, CASE IV and no conditioner respectively.
While Re=5.84×104, we can almost get   _ zk , ri  E     _ zk ,ri  III     _ zk ,ri  IV     _ zk ,ri  II     _ zk ,ri  I  from
Fig.5 (a). In CASE I: hvane=0.3Dpipe,   _ zk ,ri  I  goes relatively stable, and has much better performance

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ACMME 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 394 (2018) 032049 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/394/3/032049
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than   _ zk , ri  E  in region ri Dp  0.1 ; While Re=5.84×105, we have   _ zk , ri  III     _ zk ,ri  IV  

  _ zk ,ri  E     _ zk ,ri  II     _ zk , ri  I  from Fig. 5(b) when ri Dp  0.1 . CASE I: hvane =0.3Dpipe still does
the best in all six cases simulated. Besides, no matter Re=5.84×104 or Re=5.84×105, in
region ri Dp  0.3 , there is no sign of rising in   _ zk , ri  I  ,   _ zk ,ri  II  ,   _ zk , ri  III  or   _ zk , ri  IV  . It
indicates that removing the vanes in region ri Dp  0.1 and adding an octagonal star vanes, whose
hvane=0.3Dpipe, do have a significant improvement to the flow conditioner.

(a)

(b)
Figure 5. The distribution of average velocity deviation of Pitch circle ri at Plane: Z=5Dp.
(a) Re  5.84  104 . (b) Re  5.84  105 .

Figure 6 displays the accumulated velocity deviation of different pipe cross-section. Use   _ zk  E  ,
  _ zk  I  ,   _ zk  II  ,   _ zk  III  ,   _ zk  IV  and   _ z  C  standing for the   _ zk of Etoile conditioner, CASE I,
k

CASE II, CASE III, CASE IV and no conditioner respectively.   _ zk  C  is dramatically larger than
those with a conditioner like   _ zk  E  ,   _ zk  I  ,   _ zk  II  ,   _ zk  III  or   _ zk  IV  . No matter Re=5.84×104
or Re=5.84×105, we have   _ zk  I     _ zk  E  within 0  zk  20 Dp , and   _ zk  I     _ zk  E  while

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ACMME 2018 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 394 (2018) 032049 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/394/3/032049
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zk  20 Dp . It means CASE I: hvane =0.3Dpipe has a better performance than Etoile conditioner
within 0  zk  20 Dp , and could be the optimal configuration in all cases simulated.

(a)

(b)
Figure 6. The accumulated velocity deviation of different pipe cross-section; (a) Re  5.84  104 .
(b) Re  5.84  105 .

5. Conclusion
Accurate flow measurement is one of the key aspects of energy saving, while flow conditioner is an
important part for accurate flow measurement. Simulations with CFD technology are performed to
investigate the performance of Etoile flow conditioner downstream a vortex generator, finding that the
Etoile conditioner is helpful to modify the abnormal flow field but still can be improved. For one thing,
the vanes in region ri Dp  0.1 are too much to obstruct the fluid. For another, the vanes in
region ri Dp  0.3 are too sparse, which makes the abnormal fluid near the region can not be
effectively modified. In response to these week points above, a new flow conditioner structure
modified from Etoile conditioner is proposed. The new flow conditioner, that has removed the vanes
in region ri Dp  0.1 and added an octagonal star shaped vanes in region ri Dp  0.3 , could have a
better performance than Etoile. Specially, when the distance between vanes added and center of pipe
cross-section is 0.3Dpipe, modified flow conditioner gets the optimal configuration. When
Re  5.84  10 4 or Re  5.84  105 , the optimal configuration has a better performance than Etoile
conditioner within 0  zk  20 Dp .

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IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 394 (2018) 032049 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/394/3/032049
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At the present stage, the proposed structure is a topological flow conditioner in theory. Through
theoretical analysis in this paper, the proposed structure is of quiet a better performance than Etoile,
and it has been recommended to the Guangzhou Basic Controls company to consider for practical
application.

Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province
[Grant No. 2016A040403044].

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