Performance evaluation of an innovative design modification of an orifice meter

Abstract

This paper evaluates the effect of innovative design modification on the performance of an orifice meter. The orifice meter of 10 mm plate thickness is considered as reference meter and the plate has been modified by changing the surface topology to curvature on both the sides of the orifice plate and the performance has been evaluated using CFD. The performance of the meter is evaluated in terms of coefficient of discharge (Cd) and standard deviation. The study reveals very interesting phenomenon. The newly designed orifice meter has higher discharge coefficient with an improvement of about 22% compared to the reference orifice meter with β-value of 0.6. The performance of the new orifice meter with β-value of 0.6 and radius of curvature of 7.07 mm (2R/d = 0.471) is nearly independent of Reynolds number over the entire range of flow conditions studied (103 ≤ Re ≤ 106). © 2021