Turbine meters

Introduction
Description and principle of operation
Operation and working
Merits and demerits
Calibration, Installation, and Maintenance

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 Introduction
Axial Turbine Flow meters
• The modern axial turbine flow meter, when properly installed and calibrated, is a reliable
device capable of providing the highest accuracies attainable by any currently available flow
sensor for both liquid and gas volumetric flow measurement.
• The original axial vaned flow meter principle first credited to Woltman in 1790 was then
applied to measuring water flow.
• The axial turbine flow meters of different and often proprietary designs are used for a variety
of applications where accuracy, reliability, and rangeability are required in numerous major
industries besides water and natural gas, including oil, petrochemical, chemical process,
cryogenics, milk and beverage, aerospace, biomedical, and others.
• They are very accurate, with excellent repeatability and wide rangeability, and very good
linearity, i. e. output almost proportional to the flow rate.
• Therefore, TFM’s are widely accepted for custody transfer of NG and distribution and supply.
• They are also used for metering of supply of O2, N2, C2H4, H2, and Ar.

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 Construction
Figure shows a schematic longitudinal section through the axis of symmetry depicting the
key components of a typical meter. The meter is an in-line sensor comprising a single
turbine rotor, concentrically mounted on a shaft within a cylindrical housing through which
the flow passes. The shaft or shaft bearings are located by end supports inside
suspended upstream and downstream aerodynamic structures called diffusers, stators, or
simply cones.

The flow thus passes through an annular region occupied by the rotor blades. The
blades, which are usually flat but can be slightly twisted, are inclined at an angle to the
incident flow velocity and hence experience a torque that drives the rotor. The rate of
rotation, which can be up to 104 rpm for smaller meters, is detected by a pickup, which is
usually a magnetic type, and registration of each rotor blade passing infers the passage
of a fixed volume of fluid.

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Longitudinal section of an axial turbine flowmeter depicting the key components. The flowmeter
body is usually a magnetically transparent stainless steel such as 304. Common end-fittings include
face flanges (depicted), various threaded fittings and tri-clover fittings. The upstream and downstream
diffusers are the same in bidirectional meters, and generally supported by three or more flat plates, or
sometimes tubular structures, aligned with the body, which also act as flow straighteners. The relative
size of the annular flow passage at the rotor varies among different designs. Journal rotor bearings
are frequently used for liquids, while ball bearings are often used for gases. Magnetic reluctance
pickups (depicted) are frequently used. Others types include mechanical and modulated carrier
pickups.
(1) End fitting — flange shown; (2) flowmeter body; (3) rotation pickup — magnetic, reluctance
type 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.

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 Description and principle
• The meter mainly consists of a body, measuring mechanism and an output
device.
• The measuring mechanism consists of a rotor with a number of angled
blades, mounted co-axially on the meter body center line, supported on
ball race type bearings that are either permanently lubricated or
lubricated by means of a pump.
• The rotor is supported upstream and downstream by a spider
arrangement, which often consists of flow straighteners.
• The flowing gas revolves the blades; the angular velocity being
proportional to the flow velocity.
• If the flow area is kept constant, the rpm of blades is an indication of flow
rate.
• The actual rotational speed depends on passage way size, shape and
design of the rotor, and also on the load imposed due to internal
mechanical friction, fluid drag, external loading and gas density.

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 I

Gas Turbine
meters

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• As the driving torque on the blades depends on density and square of velocity, the
velocity of the gas is increased in the annular space formed by the nose cone and
the wall body. This provides more torque increasing the low-flow rate
performance.
• Annular area is about 1/3rd of the housing.
• The blades are set at much smaller angle to the meter axis in order to avoid the
over speeding of the bearing.
• The maximum speed limit is 50 m/s.

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 Construction features
• It may be top or side entry type. It is connected to the main body by a flange and it
can be moved without disturbing the body.
• The mechanisms are interconvertible and construction is made such that the
performance is unaffected, if one form is changed to another.
• The output can be recorded either by a mechanical gear-train or an electronic
pulse.
• In case of mechanical type, the blade rotation transmitted through a magnetic
coupling to an index counter directly reads volume in cu.m. and in the electronic
type, the rotor blade or their tips, which are fitted with magnetic material, a pulse
is generated as the blade passes beneath a magnetic pick-up coil. The total
number of pulses gives indication of total volume of the gas passed.

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 Characteristics
• Error: E = (Vindicated-Vtrue)X100 / Vtrue. Meters are designed for E = 1% over a
specified flow range. Density range is also specified.
• “K” factor is total number of pulses per unit time.
• Repeatability is the ability of the meter to duplicate output of performance for
identical inputs. It is given by 2.83, where  is std. deviation in errors. Most
meters are designed for 0.1% repeatability.
• Accuracy is the conformity of the indicated reading to the true reading of the
measured variable. The true value is the test volume indicated by the prover used
to calibrate. Accuracy is generally set to 0.5 to 1% .

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 Calibration, Installation, and Maintenance

Axial turbine flowmeters have a working dynamic range of at least 10:1 over which the
linearity is specified. The maximum flow rate is determined by design factors related to size
vs. maximum pressure drop and maximum rotor speed. The minimum of the range is
determined by the linearity specification itself. Due to small, unavoidable, manufacturing
variances, linearity error curves are unique to individual meters and are normally provided
by the manufacturer. However, although recommended where possible, the conditions of
the application cannot usually and need not necessarily duplicate those of the initial or
even subsequent calibrations. This has pivotal importance in applications where actual
operating conditions are extreme or the medium is expensive or difficult to handle.

Figure depicts a typically shaped calibration curve of linearity vs. flow rate expressed in
terms of multiple alternative measures, various combinations of which can be found in
current use. The vertical axis thus represents either the linearity error as a percentage of
flow rate, a K factor expressed in terms of the number of pulses from the rotation sensor
output per volume of fluid, or the deviation from 100% registration; the latter only applies to
flow meters with mechanical pickups. The horizontal axis can be expressed in terms of flow
rate in volume units/time, Reynolds number (Re), or pulse frequency (from the rotation
sensor for nonmechanical) divided by kinematic viscosity, in units of Hz per m2s–1, 10–6 m2s–
1
= 1 centistoke), and where kinematic viscosity is the ratio of absolute viscosity (m) to
density. Calibrations are preferably expressed vs. Re.

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The accuracy of axial turbine flow meters is reduced by unconditioned flow,
especially swirl. An installation incorporating flow conditioners along with specific
upstream and downstream straight pipe lengths is generally recommended. Some
axial turbine flow meters can be purchased with additional large flow straighteners
that mount directly ahead of the flow meter body or conditioning plates that are
integral to the body.
The manufacturer is the first source of information regarding installation. Errors due
to flow velocity pulsations are another concern, particularly in certain gas
installations. However, no standard technique for effectively counteracting this
source of error has yet been adopted. Periodic maintenance, testing, and
recalibration is required because the calibration will shift over time due to wear,
damage, or contamination. For certain applications, especially those involving
custody transfer of oil and natural gas, national standards, international standards,
and other recommendations exist that specify the minimum requirements for
turbine meters with respect to these aspects.

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