An investigation of effects of flow conditioning on straight tube Coriolis meter

Coriolis meter, despite being very accurate in single phase conditions, fails to accurately measure two-phase flows. It poses a complex fluid-structure interaction problem in case of two-phase operation; there is a scarcity of theoretical models available to predict the errors reported by Coriolis meter in aforementioned conditions, hence the need for experimental research. Experiments are conducted in both single and two-phase flow conditions. Meter accuracy is excellent in single phase conditions and no significant effect is observed on use of flow conditioners, namely inlet swirl and inline mixer. Operational two-phase envelope is determined through experiments at different flowrates. Flow conditioners are used to study the effect of phase segregation and homogenization on accuracy of the meter. Testing is done to cover two-phase flows from both extreme ends, namely aerated liquids and wet gas. Use of flow conditioners show slight improvement in meter accuracy on use of inline mixer, and reduction in accuracy in case of inlet swirl, when both former and latter are compared to results obtained from experiments with no flow conditioners. The difference in accuracies between results with flow conditioner and without flow conditioners is attributed to relative motion between the phases, which is more in case of inlet swirl, due to larger bubble sizes. Flow conditioners show an insignificant effect on meter accuracy during wet gas tests. The reason proposed is annular flow regime, which is not highly affected by flow conditioners. Single phase tests demonstrate that Coriolis meter gives accurate measurement even in presence of severe flow disturbances. There is no need for flow conditioning before the meter to obtain accurate readings from it, which would be the case in other metering technologies like orifice and turbine. In two phase flows, the meter reports negative errors, which is consistent with previous experimental works available in literature. Use of flow conditioners clearly affects the reading of the meter in aerated liquids. This phenomenon can be used to get fairly accurate estimate of flow rate in low gas volume fraction liquid flows.