Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Unsteady Turbulent Flow in a Fluidic Oscillator Flow Meter with Derivation of Characteristic Diagram

In this article, a special duct is introduced in which, inlet water jet initiates to oscillate after a short time and it causes the velocity and pressure to oscillate regularly. Considering that there is a linear relationship between the inlet jet velocity and its oscillations frequency, the flow rate can be calculated by measuring the pressure frequency. In order to study the flow field inside the current geometry of fluidic oscillator and also to find the optimum location for sensor to detect the pressure oscillation, the unsteady turbulent Navier-Stokes equations are solved by ANSYS CFX software. Having studied the grid independency, capability of K-ε and SST turbulence models for numerical simulation of unsteady flow inside the fluidic oscillator is considered. Then, according to the peak to average ratio (PAR) criterion, the qualities of pressure signals are compared at some points, to distinguish an optimum pressure sensor position. Afterwards, a prototype of fluidic oscillator flow meter is manufactured for the first time in Iran. Using this prototype and inserting the pressure and Piezoelectric sensor at the optimum point, the numerical simulation results are validated by the experimental data. Comparison between the numerical and experimental results shows that the SST model is more suitable for this flow simulation. Finally, by performing experiments in different flows, acquiring and processing pressure signals, the flow meter characteristic diagram (inlet jet oscillations frequency- inlet jet velocity) are extracted.