Dynamics of ultrasonic flowmeters

The characteristics of flowmeters include important parameters such as measurement error, repeatability and rangeability achieved on flowmetering stands under conditions of steady flow. Under industrial conditions, real flows are not stationary. They are pulsating, impulsive or fast changing. Here the rms (root mean square) error may be significant. The total error in an industrial flow measurement may be much more than indicated in the technical documentation. The square-root error depends on the frequency spectrum of flow and dynamic characteristics (bandwidth) of flowmeters. There tends to be a decrease in this error with an increase in the bandwidth of flowmeters. Billing errors amounting to millions of dollars probably occur in custody transfer, i.e., commercial stock-taking of export/import gas, oil and its products. This paper is devoted to mathematical models of the dynamics of ultrasonic flowmeters for parameter optimization and experimental results obtained by the author.