The problem of how to accurately measure the flowrate of oil–gas–water mixtures in a pipeline remains one of the key challenges in the petroleum industry. This paper discusses why three-phase flow measurement is still important and why it remains a difficult problem to solve. The measurement strategies and principal base technologies currently used by commercial manufacturers are described, and research developments that could influence future flowmeter design are considered. Finally, future issues, which will need to be addressed by manufacturers and users of three-phase flowmeters, are discussed.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-0233/24/1/012003/pdf

Three-phase flow measurement in the petroleum industry

Over the last two decades, water smart metering programs have been launched in a number of medium to large cities worldwide to nearly continuously monitor water consumption at the single household level. The availability of data at such very high spatial and temporal resolution advanced the ability in characterizing, modeling, and, ultimately, designing user-oriented residential water demand management strategies. Research to date has been focusing on one or more of these aspects but with limited integration between the specialized methodologies developed so far. This manuscript is the first comprehensive review of the literature in this quickly evolving water research domain. The paper contributes a general framework for the classification of residential water demand modeling studies, which allows revising consolidated approaches, describing emerging trends, and identifying potential future developments. In particular, the future challenges posed by growing population demands, constrained sources of water supply and climate change impacts are expected to require more and more integrated procedures for effectively supporting residential water demand modeling and management in several countries across the world. We review high resolution residential water demand modeling studies.We provide a classification of existing technologies and methodologies.We identify current trends, challenges and opportunities for future development.

/pdf/benefits-and-challenges-of-using-smart-meters-for-advancing-3nblgijm2n.pdf

Benefits and challenges of using smart meters for advancing residential water demand modeling and management

Water is nature's most precious resource and growing demand is pushing fresh water supplies to the brink of non-renewability. New technological and social initiatives that enhance conservation and reduce waste are needed. Providing consumers with fine-grained real-time information has yielded benefits in conservation of power and gasoline. Extending this philosophy to water conservation, we introduce a novel water monitoring system, NAWMS, that similarly empowers users.The goal of our work is to furnish users with an easy-to-install self-calibrating system that provides information on when, where, and how much water they are using. The system uses wireless vibration sensors attached to pipes and, thus, neither plumbing nor special expertise is necessary for its installation. By implementing a non-intrusive, autonomous, and adaptive system using commodity hardware, we believe it is cost-effective and widely deployable.NAWMS makes use of the existing household water flow meter, which is considered accurate, but lacks spatial granularity, and adds vibration sensors on individual water pipes to estimate the water flow to each individual outlet. Compensating for manufacturing, installation, and material variabilities requires calibration of these low cost sensors to achieve a reasonable level of accuracy. We have devised an adaptive auto-calibration procedure, which attempts to solve a two phase linear programming and mixed linear geometric programming problem.We show through experiments on a three pipe testbed that such a system is indeed feasible and adapts well to minimize error in the water usage estimate. We report an accuracy, over likely domestic flow-rate scenarios, with long-term stability and a mean absolute error of 7%.

/pdf/nawms-nonintrusive-autonomous-water-monitoring-system-17o5tn6kta.pdf

NAWMS: nonintrusive autonomous water monitoring system

This first technical session is further developing the technological dimensions of technology transfer, with three illustrations of successful and representative industrial applications. It covers the cases of embedded autonomy in spacecraft applications, advanced avionics solutions for satellite communication and component hybridization for navigation.

Industrial applications

An object of the present invention is to perform a suitable registration of a flow rate of appliances to promote the optimization of a usage time limitation function. In a gas shut-off device according to the invention, a flow rate detection unit measures a flow rate, a flow rate calculation unit calculates values of instant flow rates from a detection value, an average flow rate calculation unit obtains an average flow rate from the obtained instant flow rates, a flow rate change decision unit decides the presence or absence of a change in the flow rate based on the obtained average flow rate, a flow rate storage unit stores a value of the obtained average flow rate, an increase flow rate registration unit registers an amount of the flow rate change at the time of increase change decision by the flow rate change decision unit, a decrease flow rate re-registration unit reduces the registered flow rate near an amount of the flow rate change at the time of decrease change decision by the flow rate change decision unit, and re-registers and replaces it with a value of the average flow rate obtained by the average flow rate calculation unit after the reduction of the registered flow rate, and a shut-off unit shuts off the supply of gas when decided as an abnormality by an abnormality decision unit from the registered flow rate and a decision value.

Gas shut-off device

Estimating the number of transducers for flow rate measurement using the UVP method downstream of double elbows

A steam control valve is used to control the flow from the steam generator to the steam turbine in thermal and nuclear power plants. During startup and shutdown of the plant, the steam control valve is operated under a partial flow conditions. In such conditions, the valve opening is small and the pressure deference across the valve is large. As a result, the flow downstream of the valve is composed of separated unsteady transonic jets. Such flow patterns often cause undesirable large unsteady fluid force on the valve head and downstream pipe system. In the present study, various flow patterns are investigated in order to understand the characteristics of the unsteady flow around the valve. Experiments are carried out with simplified two-dimensional valve models. Two-dimensional unsteady flow simulations are conducted in order to understand the experimental results in detail. Scale effects on the flow characteristics are also examined. Results show three types of oscillating flow pattern and three types of static flow patterns.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ijfms/3/1/3_1_58/_pdf

A Two-Dimensional Study of Transonic Flow Characteristics in Steam Control Valve for Power Plant

A steam control valve causes vibration of the piping when the opening is in the middle condition. For the rationalization of maintenance and management in the plant, the valve should he improved, but it is difficult to understand the flow characteristics in detail by experiment because the flow around the valve is complex 3D structure and becomes supersonic (M>1). To clarify this phenomenon, as the first step, we introduce an small scale air experiment to investigate the region of the pressure fluctuation. At only the middle opening condition, a circumferentially propagating spike type pressure fluctuation can he seen. The occuring region of this fluctuation depends on mass flow rate and valve structure.

A Study of Flow Oscillation on the Steam Control Valve : A Study of Pressure Fluctuation around a Valve by Experimental Approach

A steam control valve causes vibration of the piping when the opening is in the middle condition. For the rationalization of maintenance and management in the plant, the valve should he improved, but it is difficult to understand the flow characteristics in detail by experiment because the flow around the valve is complex 3D stlacture and becomes supersonic (M>1). In this report, a high-precision 3D CFD code for compressible flow is developed. After validating the code by comparing with experiments, the detailed flow characteristics around the valve are studied. At only the middle opening condition, a circumferentially propagating spike-type pressure fluctuation caused by asymmetric flow around valve can be seen. As this fluctuation causes cyclic side load on the valve body, it is thought to be the cause of vibration.

Kenichi Tezuka

Papers

Estimating the number of transducers for flow rate measurement using the UVP method downstream of double elbows

A Two-Dimensional Study of Transonic Flow Characteristics in Steam Control Valve for Power Plant

A Study of Flow Oscillation on the Steam Control Valve : A Study of Pressure Fluctuation around a Valve by Experimental Approach

A Study of Flow Oscillation on the Steam Control Valve (2nd Report, CFD Approach)

Analysis of Ultrasound Propagation in A Steel Pipe Using Ultrasonic Pulse Doppler Method