Application of small size cavitating venturi as flow controller and flow meter

The cavitating venturi is using to provide constant mass flow rate of liquid which is passing through a passage, independent of downstream pressure changes. The flow rate is a function of the upstream pressure, the throat area, the density and saturation pressure of the liquid. An experimental setup with capability of supplying water flow rate and constant upstream pressure was designed and manufactured. Three cavitating venturis with throat diameter of 5, 2.5, and 1 mm were designed and built to investigate the effect of venturi size on its mass flow rate. Three different sets of experiments were conducted to investigate the performance of the venturis. In the experiments, the mass flow rates were examined under different downstream and upstream pressure conditions and time varying downstream pressure. The results show for the ratio of downstream pressure to upstream pressure less than 0.8, the mass flow rate is constant and independent of the downstream pressure. Whenever the pressure ratio exceeds 0.8, the venturi acts like an orifice. This pressure ratio has been predicted analytically to highlight the affecting parameters, mainly the geometry of the venturi and viscous losses. It is found that the venturi size has no effect on its expecting function to keep mass flow rate constant. Also, it is shown that by applying a discharge coefficient and using only upstream pressure, the cavitating venturi can be used as a flowmeter with a high degree of accuracy in a wide range of mass flow rate.     

Application of variable area cavitating venturi as a dynamic flow controller

The variable area cavitating venturi is an effective means to throttle the mass flow rate of liquid. The mass flow rate is a function of the upstream pressure, the pintle stroke, the density and saturation pressure of the liquid, independent of the downstream pressure. In this paper, a variable area cavitating venturi is designed and four different sets of experiments are conducted to investigate the performance of the variable area cavitating venturi. In these experiments, the mass flow rates are examined under different pintle positions, upstream pressures, downstream pressures and dynamic motions of the pintle. The experimental results indicate that the mass flow rate is independent of the downstream pressure when the ratio of the downstream pressure to upstream pressure is less than 0.8. The mass flow rate is almost linearly dependent on the pintle stroke for a constant upstream pressure. The discharge coefficient is a function of the pintle stroke, whereas the upstream and downstream pressures have rare influence on the discharge coefficient. The variable area cavitating venturi can control and measure the mass flow rate dynamically by determining the pintle stroke and the upstream pressure.     

Experimental and numerical investigation on the performance of small-sized cavitating venturis

Cavitating venturis (CVs) are simple devices which can be used in different industrial applications to passively control the flow rate of fluids. In this research the operation of small-sized CVs is characterized and their capabilities in regulating the mass flow rate were experimentally and numerically investigated. The effect of upstream and downstream pressures, as well as geometrical parameters such as the throat diameter, throat length, and diffuser angle on the mass flow rate and critical pressure ratio were studied. For experimental data acquisition, three CVs with throat diameters of 0.7, 1 and 1.5 mm were manufactured and tested. The fabricated CVs were tested at different upstream and downstream pressures in order to measure their output mass flow rate and to obtain their characteristic curves. The flow inside the CVs was also simulated by computational fluid dynamics. The numerical results showed agreement with the experimental data by a maximum deviation of 5–10% and confirmed that the numerical approach can be used to predict the critical pressure ratio and mass flow rate at cavitaing condition. It is found that despite the small size of venturis, they are capable of controlling the mass flow rate and exhibit the normal characteristics. By decreasing the throat diameter, their cavitating mode became more limited. Results also show that increasing the diffuser angle and throat length leads to a decrease in critical pressure ratio.     

Experimental investigation of a cavitating Venturi and its application to flow metering

An experimental investigation has been carried out to evaluate the performance of a cavitating Venturi flow. For that purpose, a closed loop circuit with a centrifugal pump and a transparent asymmetric converging-diverging test section has been built which allows to set the pressure level and the flow rate. The system is instrumented with several pressure sensors and temperature probes that are continuously monitored during the tests. The experiments have consisted in generating non-cavitating and cavitating flows inside the Venturi under controlled conditions. The obtained results, which have been characterized as a function of the Venturi's discharge coefficient, pressure ratio and pressure loss coefficient, are in good agreement with previous studies carried out with standard Venturi geometries, specially under non-cavitating flows. The Venturi's performance under cavitation flows has been found to be dependent on the Venturi's inlet pressure and similar to a chocked flow condition with constant volumetric flow rate. On the basis of these observations and the analogous behaviour with compressible gas nozzles, a new flow coefficient has been derived which remains constant at any cavitating regime. Thus, this coefficient permits to use a Venturi as a flow meter on cavitation conditions.     

Flow measurement and instrumentation flow control characteristics of throttling venturi valve with adjustable area

In this study, a throttling venturi valve with adjustable area was designed to control the thrust of a monopropellant thruster using hydrogen peroxide. The flow rate control characteristics of the throttling venturi valve were investigated based on the pintle stroke and upstream pressure of the venturi. Three kinds of experiments were conducted: pressure and flow rate measurement according to pintle stroke and venturi upstream pressure, determination of critical pressure ratios under various conditions, flow rate control performance through open-loop control and feedback control of an actuator. The pressures were measured at the upstream, throat, and downstream of the venturi. It was observed that the flow rate changed in proportion to the stroke and upstream pressure. Below a stroke of 10 mm, the critical pressure ratio gradually decreased as the stroke and upstream decreased. However, above a stroke of 10 mm, the critical pressure ratio converged to a value between 0.7 and 0.8 regardless of the upstream pressure. The results of automatic flow rate control tests using open-loop control and feedback control showed that the measured flow rate satisfactorily followed the target flow rate profile.     

Experimental and numerical investigation of the cavitation-induced choked flow in a herschel venturi-tube

Due to their simple geometry, cavitating Venturi nozzles (CV) are a long time subject of experimental as well as numerical investigations. However, research mostly focused on certain aspects like the comparison of experimental data with numerical cavitation models or the spray development of diesel injection nozzles, but rarely on the choked flow condition itself, especially with regard to liquid flow measurement.If the pressure decreases due to the local acceleration of the flow to the respective vapor pressure, a choked flow condition similar to the well-known critical flow Venturi-nozzles (CFVN) develops. For the purpose of gaining further insight into the choked flow condition with respect to liquid flow measurement, high-speed camera investigations of a transparent Herschel Venturi-tube configuration, also known as classical Venturi-tube, were performed. Together with pressure and flow rate measurements, they demonstrated the overall stable flow behavior under choked conditions. With additional numerical investigations, phenomena during the onset of the choked condition were clarified. Furthermore, a simple correlation for the calculation of the actual flow rate during the choked condition, including a temperature correction was proposed.     

Experimental investigation of gas-liquid flow in a vertical venturi installed downstream of a horizontal blind tee flow conditioner and the flow regime transition

A venturi device is commonly used as an integral part of a multiphase flowmeter (MPFM) in real-time oil-gas production monitoring. Partial flow mixing is required by installing the venturi device vertically downstream of a blind tee pipework that conditions the incoming horizontal gas-liquid flow (for an accurate determination of individual phase fraction and flow rate). To study the flow-mixing effect of the blind tee, high-speed video flow visualization of gas-liquid flows has been performed at blind tee and venturi sections by using a purpose-built transparent test rig over a wide range of superficial liquid velocities (0.3–2.4 m/s) and gas volume fractions (10–95%). There is little ‘homogenization’ effect of the blind tee on the incoming intermittent horizontal flow regimes across the tested flow conditions, with the flow remaining intermittent but becoming more axis-symmetric and predictable in the venturi measurement section. A horizontal (blind tee) to vertical (venturi) flow-pattern transition map is proposed based on gas and liquid mass fluxes (weighted by the Baker parameters). Flow patterns can be identified from the mean and variance of a fast electrical capacitance holdup measured at the venturi throat.     

Experimental investigation on characteristics of venturi cavitating flow and Rhodamine B degradation in methanol solution

Hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) commonly occurs within industrial pipelines and its unsteady flow characteristics are of great significance for energy conservation and efficiency improvement. This study investigates the effects of methanol concentration (0–20 wt%) on the cavitating flow characteristics and the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under operating conditions of a 0.7 MPa pressure drop, temperature of 30 °C, 200 passes through a venturi reactor, and an initial RhB concentration of 40 μmol/L. The transient cavitation behavior was monitored using a high-speed camera. The cavitation images show that the presence of methanol generates more stable bubbles, which results in less violent bubble collapse. The pressure pulsation and vibration induced by cavitation flow were synchronously measured using high-frequency pressure and acceleration sensors. The spectral analyses of the pressure pulsation indicate that methanol has no effect on the dominant frequency (∼5.5 Hz) at different positions, and the amplitude initially increases with increasing methanol concentration and then stabilizes. The pressure pulsation intensity increases due to the increased vapor pressure of the solution. The vibration spectral analyses show that methanol has little effect on the peak frequencies, which occur near 4.0 kHz and 14.3 kHz of the low and high-frequency bands, respectively, whereas the peak amplitude decreases with increasing methanol concentration. The per-pass degradation model of RhB in methanol solution considering pyrolysis of methanol was verified for the first time and show to adequately describe the experimental data. The degradation percentage and per-pass degradation factor decrease with increasing methanol concentration. The reduced surface tension of the solution prolongs the bubble lifespan and prevents bubble coalescence, thus weakening the vibration and degradation performance. The results provide important insight for cavitation applications and degradation modeling of mixed solutions.     

Numerical investigation of wake flow control by a splitter plate

Unsteady separated flow around a square cylinder is simulated by using vortex tracing method to investigate the wake flow control by a splitter plate attached to the base of a bluff body. The numerical method is evaluated with selected numerical parameters for the case without the splitter plate. Then the method is applied to computations for different splitter plate lengths. Instantaneous flow patterns are scrutinized to see how the splitter plate affects the vortex formation behind the body and the downstream shedding. It is confirmed that the drag and the frequency are significantly reduced by the splitter plate, suppressing vortex shedding in the wake.     

Development of a flow control valve with digital flow compensator

Flow control valves typically use mechanical pressure drop compensator or dynamic flow meter to lessen the impact of pressure drop on outlet flow. However, there are some disadvantages, such as complex mechanical structure and small flow capacity. In this paper, a kind of digital flow compensator with bilinear interpolation algorithm is presented to compensate the pressure drop, in which the pressure drop and the desired outlet flow are the two input parameters. A two-stage proportional flow control valve with the proposed compensator is investigated. Pressure drop across the metering orifice of the valve is measured and fed back to the proposed compensator. If the detected pressure drop has deviated from the threshold, then the compensator will generate a compensation signal to adjust the poppet opening of the valve, which ensures that the output flow is independent of the pressure drop. Performances of the valve with the proposed compensator are investigated by simulation and experiment. Results show that it has a reasonable static control characteristics. In addition, there is no dead-zone in its steady flow curve; pressure drop have little impact on its output flow. Its dynamics will be affected by pressure drop and input voltage. Increasing pressure drop can improve system dynamics under constant input signal conditions. On the other hand, increasing input signal can shorten the poppet's closing time, but it will result in the longer opening time and the greater overshoot in the opening stage.     

An experimental study on a flow control device applicable in pressurized networks

The flow control valve is able to deliver an almost constant discharge which is irrespective to the pressure fluctuations in a pressurized network. In this paper the design of a flow control device for incompressible flow is studied. The design criteria of the device are extended for wider discharge values up to Q = 0.6 l/s and differential pressure limits up to Δp = 20 m. In this regard, experiments were performed on cylindrical orifice device to obtain the associated discharge formula, based on which, the initial valve design was obtained. Then, the performance of the flow control device was enhanced according to analyzing the experimental results of the initial design and modifying the float shape line. A step-by-step design framework was then proposed based on which the improved design criteria were achieved for the design discharges of Q = 0.4 l/s with 1≤Δp (m)≤7, Q = 0.6 l/s with 1≤Δp (m)≤7, and Q = 0.6 l/s with 2.6≤Δp (m)≤20. According to the experimental results, average discharge values of 0.391 l/s, 0.625 l/s, and 0.568 l/s, with the associated relative errors of 2.2%, 4.2%, and −5.3% were obtained in comparison with the design values.     

Development of a novel rotary flow control valve with an electronic actuator and a pressure compensator valve for a gas turbine engine fuel control system

This paper presents a new rotary proportional flow control valve with Cam-Nozzle configuration. The rotating cam against the fixed nozzle changes the flow area and then can meter the fuel flow. This valve equipped with a pressure compensator plunger type valve to retaining constant pressure difference across the flow control or metering valve. The cam shaft directly coupled to an electronic servomotor type rotary actuator and then it is possible to apply digital control techniques such as pulse width modulation (PWM) in this control system. This new valve configuration is developed for an electro hydro mechanical fuel control system in a gas turbine engine. In addition to aero engine application, this type of flow metering valve can widely be used in industrial hydraulic systems. In this unit, the output flow is proportional to the cam's angular position (or throttle command) and it is not sensitive to pressure fluctuations at nozzle inlet and outlet. The aim of this new design is to modify a manual single adjusted hydro-pneumatic fuel control unit to obtain a new electro-hydraulic fuel control system for a gas turbine engine. The main innovations in the presented fuel metering unit include new design of the rotary valve opening shape (Cam-Nozzle) without metal to metal contact, use of a rotary electronic actuating mechanism and also direct coupling between the actuator and the rotating cam. The increased fuel metering precision in the new flow control valve has improved the ultimate control accuracy of system. A computer simulation software based on the proposed model, is performed to predict the steady state and transient performance and to analyze effect of important design parameters on valve outlet fuel flow and obtain the final design parameters. The validity of the proposed valve configuration is assessed experimentally in the steady state and transient modes of operation. The results show good agreement between simulation and experimental in both modes (max. 4% deviation).     

Comparison of an ultrasonic interferometer manometer and a new dynamic flow control system in the pressure range 1–133 Pa

This work is concerned with comparison of two low-pressure calibration systems at the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS). The ultrasonic interferometer manometer (UIM) which is a national primary standard and the dynamic flow control system (FCS) which can be used for the calibration of vacuum gauges by comparison method by generating precise and stable pressure in the range 1–133 Pa. For this comparison, a capacitance diaphragm gauge (CDG) of 133 Pa full-scale range was used as transfer standard in the overlapping range of 1–133 Pa. The behavior of two systems in the pressure range 1.37–11.5 Pa had large variations which gradually reduced above 11.5 Pa. In the range 1.37–11.5 Pa, the difference in calibration factors for the two systems was 0.0114 with relative deviations of 5.177%. However above 11.5 Pa the corresponding values were 0.0056 and 1.197%, respectively. Since in vacuum metrology, UIM is world-wide recognized as a national calibration standard, the results of this comparison will be used to validate the FCS for calibration of low vacuum gauges.     

Computational bilinear optimal control for a class of one-dimensional MHD flow systems

In this paper, we consider a bilinear optimal control problem arising in a one-dimensional (1-D) MHD flow modeled by an array of coupled partial differential equations (PDEs). The external control input (external induction of magnetic field) in the model takes the multiplicative effect on both state variables (i.e., momentum and magnetic components). Our aim is to drive the flow velocity to within close proximity of a desired target flow velocity at the pre-indicated terminal time. We first use the Galerkin method combined with a set of basis quadratic B-spline functions to obtain a semi-discrete approximation problem. Next, the convergence of the semi-discrete approximation problem is proved. Then the control parameterization method combined with the time-scaling transformation technique is utilized to obtain an approximate optimal parameter selection problem, in which the exact gradients of the cost function with respect to the decision parameters are computed based on our analytical equations. The approximate problem are then solved by using the gradient-based optimization techniques such as the sequential quadratic programming (SQP). Finally, the numerical results validate the effectiveness of our method.     

A novel technique of using a thyristor driven pump as the final control element and flow indicator of a flow control loop

In the present paper, design of a flow control loop using a thyristor driven pump as final control element has been described. In this technique, the load current of a thyristor driven pump motor has been utilized as a mass flow sensing parameter of a fluid passing through a pipeline. This thyristor driven pump has been utilized as a final control element of a flow control loop and the speed of the pump has been selected as the manipulated variable. The non-linearity between the thyristor input signal and pump output has been eliminated by using a modified PID control technique with inverse derivative control action. Thus without using any conventional flow meter and control valve only the thyristor driven pump has been utilized both as the final control element and flow indicating device by using the proposed technique. The whole system has been designed, fabricated and tested by using tap water as the flowing liquid through a pipe line. The experimental results along with the theoretical analysis are compared and reported in the paper.     

Strategies for the applications of flow control downstream of a bluff body

Flow over a bluff body is a common and significant case for engineering sciences. The well-known problem is the highly unsteady and vortical flow structure developing downstream of the body. The wake of the body has a complex flow dynamics. The chaotic flow structure in the wake causes serious structural deformation on the body; hence the flow is intended to be suppressed downstream of the body. There are numerous research papers for this purpose starting from 1960's. The literature survey points out that the investigations may be mainly classified as theoretical or experimental. Furthermore, the control of flow around bodies arranged as side-by-side or tandem was also studied in the past; however the flow control around a single bluff-body is reviewed in this paper. The investigations are currently continuing due to physical importance of the problem and there are increasing number of papers on flow control downstream of a bluff body which is mostly a circular cylinder. In this study, the recent development on the topic is considered such that the main results presented in papers for the last 15 years are reviewed and recalled in detail. The potential future investigation subjects are also discussed by referring to the major contributing solutions in previous related studies reviewed herein.     

Improved linear quadratic and proportional control system for improved liquid level system regulation in a coke fractionation tower

A new linear quadratic regulation (LQ) control plus a proportional (P) control system is proposed for the level regulation in an industrial coke fractionation tower. The process is first stabilized using a P controller and then a subsequent LQ controller is designed for the P control system. The P control system is modeled as a generalized first order plus dead time (FOPDT) process using step-response test and the LQ-P controller is designed through a new state space structure. Performance in terms of regulatory and servo issues were investigated. Simulation results showed that the proposed method is more robust and improves performance than traditional model predictive control.     

An optimal concurrent design and loading strategy for a flexible assembly line system: to control the bottleneck

In this paper, an optimal strategy is presented at the design stage for selection of the required local storages of the workstations and the transporter stations of a finite capacity flexible assembly line system, such that the throughput rate from the system is maximised while controlling the bottleneck problem. For this purpose, a mixed non-Markovian queueing network model is presented to model its performance, a stochastic optimisation model is provided to maximise its throughput rate, and a heuristic algorithm is developed for solving it. Finally, an example is presented and the approximation results are compared against those from a simulation study.     

Development of a novel two-dimensional(2D) three-way(3W) fuel flow control servo valve with constant pressure difference

To solve the problems of large volume, and low integration of traditional electro-hydraulic servo valve with constant pressure differential fuel metering device, a new two-dimensional three-way constant pressure differential fuel flow control servo valve (2D3WFFCSV) is developed. It innovatively adopts the advantages of lightweight of “two-dimensional hydraulic technology”, The constant differential pressure function and flow regulation function are integrated into a two-dimensional (2D) main spool with two degrees of freedom (rotational and axial degrees of freedom). The flow control process of 2D3WFFCSV is as follows: firstly, the armature of the torque motor and the two-dimensional piston are coaxially installed at the end of the two-dimensional piston, so the torque motor can directly drive the two-dimensional piston to rotate; secondly the “hydraulic servo screw mechanism”, which can amplify the power, is used to drive the two-dimensional piston to move in line; Finally, a pair of conversion mechanisms (roller group and spiral track conversion mechanism) are converted into the angular displacement of 2D main spool to control the area of flow valve port. The axial degree of freedom of 2D main spool realizes the function of constant differential pressure. To improve the flow control accuracy of the servo valve, the axial position of the 2D piston is detected by the linear displacement sensor (LVDT), and the signal is transmitted to the controller to realize the closed-loop control. To explore its open-loop characteristics, the mathematical models of torque motor, two-dimensional piston and main spool are established to obtain its open-loop transfer function. Then the AMESIM simulation model is built. To optimize the design of the system, through the dynamic simulation of the system, the influence of key parameters on the dynamic response of the system can be studied. An experimental study is carried out to verify the design feasibility of the servo valve. The experimental results show that under the condition of no-load and full-scale input, the closed-loop delay of the servo valve is 1.84%, the linearity is 2.14%, the step response time is 43 ms, and the dynamic frequency response is 38 Hz. The newly developed 2D3WFFCSV has the advantages of high integration, small size, light weight (801.5 g) and high response and control accuracy. It can replace the constant differential pressure, metering valve and hydraulic servo valve in the aeroengine fuel regulator.     

Application of averaging bidirectional flow tube for measurement of single-phase flow rate in a piping system

A new instrument, an averaging bidirectional flow tube (BDFT), is proposed to measure single-phase flow rates. This averaging BDFT has unique measuring characteristics foremost among which is the capability to measure bidirectional flow and insensitivity of the fluid attack angle. Single phase calibration tests were conducted to demonstrate the performance of the averaging BDFT. Likewise, to enhance the applicability of the averaging BDFT on various flow conditions, flow analyses using CFD code were performed focusing on design optimization of the BDFT. The calibration test results indicated that this averaging BDFT has a linearity within 0.5 % in the Reynolds (Re) number range of above 10,000 where it is meaningful in terms of application. The flow analyses results demonstrate a good linearity of the averaging BDFT with various design features. Therefore, averaging BDFT can be applied for measurement of flow rates within a wide range of flow conditions. This paper was recommended for publication in revised form by Associate Editor Won-Gu Joo Kyoung-Ho Kang received his B.S. and M. S. degrees in Nuclear Engineering from SNU (Seoul National University), KOREA in 1993 and 1995, respectively. He then received his Ph.D. degree in Nuclear and Quantum Engineering from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in 2009. Dr. Kang is currently a senior researcher at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in Daejeon, Korea. Dr. Kang’s research interests include analysis and experiments for the nuclear safety, thermal hydraulics, and experiments and modeling for the severe accidents. Byong-Jo Yun received his B.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering from SNU (Seoul National University), KOREA in 1989. He then received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from SNU in 1991 and 1996, respectively. Dr. Yun is currently a principal researcher at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in Daejeon, Korea. Dr. Yun’s research interests include analysis and experiments for the nuclear safety, thermal hydraulics, two-phase flow, scaling analysis, and development of instrumentation for two-phase flow. Dong-Jin Euh received his B.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering from Seoul University, Korea, in 1993. He then received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from same university in 1995 and 2002, respectively. Dr. Euh is currently a researcher at thermal hydraulic safety research department of Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in Daejeon, Korea. Dr. Euh’s research interests include two-phase thermal hydraulics in the Nuclear Systems and Fundamental Phenomena. Won-Pil Baek has been working at KAERI as the general project manager (director) for development of nuclear thermalhydraulic experiment and analysis technology since 2001. He received his B.S. degree in nuclear engineering from Seoul National University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from KAIST. In 1991–2000, he worked for KAIST as a researcher and research professor. Currently he also serves as an executive editor of the Nuclear Engineering and Technology, an international journal of the Korean Nuclear Society. His research interests include critical heat flux, integral effect tests, modeling, nuclear safety, and advanced reactor development.