Going with the Flow

Greg: My personal favorite is the Coriolis meter because it has no drift or installation effects (other than vibration), incredible accuracy (e.g. 0.02%) and rangeability (e.g. 100:1) independent of composition and velocity profile, low noise, no calibration or maintenance, plus an extremely accurate density measurement that can offer an inferential measurement of concentration or percent gas or solids. Coriolis is the only true mass flow measurement. For liquid reactant feed measurement and ratio control, Coriolis meters are essential. Why isn't a Coriolis meter used?

Ram: The meter is expensive, particularly in large pipe sizes. The largest size is presently about 16 inches, but at quite a price. For slurries there must be no accumulation of solids. Straight-tube Coriolis meters are used to prevent erosion at a price of a 5x reduction in accuracy (e.g. 0.1%).

Stan: What about the measurement of flow in ducts?

Ram: Thermal gas flowmeters are predominantly used to measure refinery waste gas flow consisting of mostly ethane and methane. It is also common in material and energy balance controls in large furnaces by measuring air duct flow. Many of the emission reports to regulatory authorities are indirectly computed for total emission, based on plant throughput wherein air/gas flow measurements become critical besides direct composition analysis of stacks.

Greg: Thermal gas flowmeters depend on the thermal conductivity being constant. They are extensively used for measuring air, oxygen and carbon dioxide flow to bioreactors. For bench top and pilot-plant scale bioreactors, these flowmeters are integrated with a internal flow element and PID controller to become a mass flow controller (MFC) that gets its flow setpoint from the bioreactor control system. The tuning of these MFCs can be made fast enough to insure speed as a secondary loop is 5x faster than the primary dissolved oxygen or pH loop. What are some low-cost alternatives?

Ram: Fluidic Components Inc.'s flowmeters that measure the heat loss have a better accuracy and rangeability than thermal mass flowmeters, particularly if the stream has moisture. Two heaters are used to prevent condensation.

Stan: What is done for the flow measurement of solids?

Ram: The most accurate measurement of conveyor flow is by gravimetric feeders that are separate, specially designed sections of conveyors on load cells to measure speed and weight. Linear voltage differential transmitters (LVDT) offer an economical and fairly repeatable solution. Ultrasonic sensors are also used. Radiation sensors are more accurate than LVDT or ultrasonic, but require wipe testing every three years and permitting for maintenance by a radiation officer.

Flow out of a hopper is measured by a rotary valve in the hopper discharge. Measuring hoppers may be used at several points in a fluidized solids process, such as spar in hydrofluoric acid (HF) manufacturing. The same technique is used for cement kilns and bagging operations.

Greg: Flow can be computed from the rate of change in weight by load cells or level by radar as described last month. Centrifugal pump speed with temperature measurements for viscosity and pressure measurements for rise compensation have been used for computing polymer flow. A valve-flow model for equal percentage trim and a large valve to system drop ratio can extend the turndown of differential head and vortex meters, but should not be viewed as a replacement for flow measurements due to effects of shaft windup, backlash, stiction, composition and geometry.

Stan: How do you measure extremely low flow rates?

Ram: Coriolis meters as small as 1/8 in. are available. For even lower flows, capillary flowmeters with a DP measurement are used, keeping the system in temperature-controlled baths. Very small flow with high accuracy and resolution is achieved by using special turbine meters in pilot plants to measure 1 cc to 5 cc an hour or smaller.

Greg: Bench top bioreactors use peristaltic pumps for feeding seed cultures, amino acids, nutrients, reagents and glucose. The speed provides a volumetric flow measurement. If the choices seem too confusing, here is list of excuses to write the whole thing off.

Top 10 Reasons Not to Use Flow Measurements

10. Minimizing project costs are more important than minimizing operating costs.
9. Adaptive control will take care of everything.
8. I don't really want to know what the control valve is doing.
7. I want to do an academic paper on valve flow models.
6. I love process mysteries.
5. I don't want to disturb disturbances.
4. Operators say they don't change feed rates.
3. Feed-forward control is too complicated.
2. Online process metrics might show our mistakes.
1. We know the flows from the process flow diagram