Experimental and numerical study of V-Cone flowmeter with continuous nose in single phase liquid flow

With increasing importance of flow measurement in industries, especially in petrochemical and water and wastewater, and their need to reduce the installation space and increase the accuracy, it is necessary to improve the existing flowmeters and produce new types. In the last two decades, the V-Cone flowmeter has received the special attention of researchers with features such as reducing the required initial length, lower pressure drop compared to other types, and the ability to be used in two-phase flows. Also, several researches were done to improve the flowmeter geometry. But one of the things that is less discussed is how to connect the flowmeter stand to the body (flowmeter nose). Therefore, in this research, experimental and numerical study of a new case that has a continuous nose, and comparing it with standard types including pointed, curved and elbow, have been done. Using test results, correlations were proposed to estimate the pressure drop between two flowmeter sensors and the pressure loss. Calculations showed that the relative error of pressure drop calculation in the range of Reynolds numbers investigated (5.88 × 104 to 9.80 × 104) is about -0.73%. Numerical simulation showed that the continuous type with the highest level of disturbance (about 3.5% more than the minimum value) causes the increase of fluctuations in the value shown by the pressure gauge located downstream and the error in the calculation of the discharge coefficient. Also, changing the shape of the flowmeter nose caused only minor changes in the size of the vortexes.