Development of the orifice plate with a swirler flow conditioner

The sensitivity of orifice plate metering to poor conditioned flow and swirling flow are subjects of concerns to flow meter users and manufacturers. The distortions caused by pipefittings and pipe installations upstream of the orifice plate are major sources of poorly conditioned and swirling flow. These distortions will alter the accuracy of metering by an unacceptable degree up to 7 % error in standard discharge coefficient. So the design of orifice plate meters that are independent of the initial flow conditions of the upstream is a major object of flow metering. This goal is usually conducted by using a flow conditioner. The purpose of the present paper is to describe the development of the orifice plate combined with swirler flow conditioner that is insensitive to upstream disturbances. The experimental results by using the new swirler flow conditioner shows this flow conditioner can attenuate the effect of both swirling and asymmetric flow on metering to an acceptable level