New at PipingDesign.com: 13 January 2001

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Flowmeter Selection Isn't Easy, But Tools Are Here Control Engineering Online

<<The importance for measuring flow can vary from very high, such
as custody transfer, to relatively noncritical, such as recordkeeping. Regardless of why a user wants to measure flow, the challenge is to select the most applicable technology. The number of ways to measure flow is right up there with all the other primary process variables of pressure, temperature, and level. Over the years, many ingenious and enterprising methods have been brought to the market, some falling by the wayside due to the demands of accuracy, rangeability, erosion, impurities, or temperature variations. Many technologies have survived, presenting the user with the difficult decision of which to choose.>>

Applying Vortex Shedding Flowmeters
Control Engineering Online

<<Vortex flowmeters are applied in many processing industries and
users will increasingly select this type of flowmeter as an alternative to differential pressure based flowmeters. However, vortex flowmeters can be misapplied or may not function properly. Typical examples of this are situations where pulsation and/or vibration levels are too high, the Reynolds number and/or flow velocity is too low, or flashing/cavitation of liquid occurs. Meter factors are influenced by upstream pipe configuration, which does affect the meter accuracy. Improper sizing may result in the meter not meeting its intended turndown ratio. Therefore, prior to selection and sizing, it is of major importance to carefully evaluate each individual application to ensure that misapplications are avoided. Vortex flowmeters can be used on a wide range of fluids: pure liquids or a homogeneous mixture of liquids, gases and superheated steam. They are less suitable for high viscous liquids. Solids in the fluids should be avoided, because of possible detrimental erosion effects on the bluff body.>>

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CHEMPO Flare
Accutech 2000 Pty Ltd

<<CHEMPRO Flare offers the most advanced technology for the
analysis of flare header and process piping systems. Perform analysis of complex multi-component flare systems with thousands of pipes and nodes including systems with many loops, flares, and knock-out drums. The database driven design easily accommodates multiple cases and allows existing relief valve studies to be directly imported without duplication of data entry. The dynamic flash analysis of tanks and pressure vessels in the system accurately determines the maximum flare header load under fire conditions for computation of relief valve back-pressures for each scenario. Electronic transfer of required data from other site applications, including keyword based files and relief valve sizing data, is available as apart of the engineering solution that CHEMPRO Flare provides.>>

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Process Steam Tracing
Ogontz Corporation

<<Many process fluids require some degree of heating and
temperature regulation in piping and storage tanks. Some products are affected by temperature changes; their chemical and physical characteristics (corrosiveness, color, viscosity, etc.) change. Other products will experience problems in pumping and handling if the product temperatures are too low or too high. And, many batch mixing operations have to be conducted within some finite temperature range. Process temperature control of liquids in piping or tanks differs from the winterizing of piping, tanks and equipment (discussed in the previous section) because seasonal systems are primarily concerned with preventing damage due to freezing from low ambient temperatures. With process temperature control, it is necessary to guard against overheating as well as freezing conditions. Thus, in process temperature control the liquids must be maintained between a lower temperature limit and a higher temperature limit. Cost is another consideration. Significant energy is wasted in heating process fluids to higher than necessary temperatures.>> Received on Sat Jan 13 15:51:00 2001