Applications for a Turbine Flow Meter

Turbine Flow Meter Overview:

A turbine flow meter is a volume sensing device. As liquid or gas passes through the turbine housing, it causes the freely suspended turbine blades to rotate. The velocity of the turbine rotor is directly proportional to the velocity of the fluid passing through the flow meter.

The external pickoff mounted on the body of the flow meter, senses each rotor blade passing, causing the sensor to generate a frequency output. The frequency is directly proportional to the volume of the liquid or gas.

Either a magnetic or modulated carrier (RF) pickup can be used to sense the rotational speed of the turbine rotor.

Depending on your flow meter application, there are many types of turbine flow meters to choose from. And after understanding the application several factors come into effect when choosing a flow meter, such as:

  • Fluid Type
  • Viscosity
  • Connection
  • Pipe Sizing
  • Process Temperature (min & max)
  • Flow Range (min & max)
  • Pressure Range (min & max)
  • Accuracy Range
  • Specific Application

If you need volumetric total flow and/or flow rate measurement, a turbine flow meter is the ideal device. Turbine flow meters are used in a wide variety of liquid and gas flow sensing applications. They can be built to endure high pressure, and high and low temperatures. They offer a high turn-down with minimum uncertainty and excellent repeatability. Turbine flowmeters are also simple to install and maintain only requiring periodic recalibration and service.

Specifications:

Accuracy is generally expressed as a percentage of true volume, measuring how close the instrument indicates actual flow.

Repeatability is determined on how well the flow meter can indicate the same reading whenever the same flow conditions exist. It also ensures quality measurement of fluids over a wide range of flow rates, temperatures, compositions and viscosities.

Depending on the type of turbine flow meter, the specifications vary.

Turbine Meter – (FM Series)
Tangential Turbine Flowmeter – (FMT Series) capable of measuring extremely low flow rates.
Insertion Turbine Flow Meter – (FMP Series) used economically usually in pipes 6” and larger in diameter

Liquid Service
Flow Range: 0.03 – 15,000 GPM
Accuracy:

±0.5% Linearity over Normal Range 10:1 Turndown
±0.05% Repeatability
Sizes: 1/4″ to 72″
Gas Service
Flow Range: 0.25 – 1500 ACFM
Accuracy:

±0.1% Linearity over Normal Range 10:1 Turndown
±1% Repeatability
Sizes: 1/4″ to 72″

Industries:

Extracting Uranium from Seawater

Extracting Uranium from Seawater | Flowmetrics

It is estimated that the oceans hold 4 billion tons of uranium. This amount of uranium would be enough to power the world’s major cities for thousands of years, the trouble is getting it out of the water. Scientists have shown progress on using a material that binds to uranium dioxide in seawater and can later be treated to remove the uranium. This process would entail dragging braided polyethylene fibers coated with amidoxime through the oceans.

The process is still inefficient and expensive, but finding alternatives to uranium ore mining is a necessary step in planning for the future of nuclear energy.

Uranium is only found in seawater at a concentration of 3.3 micrograms per liter, that converts to 1 particle of Uranium to every 3,000,000,000,000,000 particles of the remainder of seawater. The material is inefficient in that only 6 grams of Uranium is adsorbed for every kilogram of the material, or an efficiency of .6% after 8 weeks of collection.

If constant extraction via this method were to be enacted a fleet would need roughly 693,000 kilograms of the material being dragged at all times, just to fuel a single Gigawatt nuclear power plant for the same duration.

 

Click here for the full article by Jennifer Hackett.