MEng Mechanical Engineering with Renewables - Industrial Placement 2009 – 2010

Chapter 1
Introduction

This Report documents my 6 month (January-July 2010) Meng European Placement 4 in Duisburg, Germany.
The city of Duisburg lies in the west of the Ruhr area and is part of a renowned industrial region
known particularly for its steel industry and the largest inland harbour in the world.

The motivation for this report is to fulfil the main assessment criteria for this placement set by my university
(University of Edinburgh). As a result, the document includes chapters on the economic and social context
of the project as well as my personal and professional development. Since these chapters are of little interest
to future students continuing research in this direction, a 2nd edition of this report has been produced for
Krohne GmbH and the University of Duisburg-Essen. The 2nd edition, has been written in a condensed
form as a reference document for future research from Duisburg-Essen University and Krohne research
departments.

The test rig. In the foreground on the trolley is a 1D bend with 0d inlet length test configuration.

In the background is the calibration rig.

The placement was under the the European initiative; ERASMUS. It was conducted at the University of
Duisburg-Essen and at the research headquarters of Krohne GmbH in Duisburg. Krohne is a world leader
in flow meter devices, has branches in every continent and a turnover of 273 million Euros (2007). Amongst their large portfolio of devices is the vortex flow meter.

My supervisors were Professor von Lavante from the University of Duisburg-Essen and Mr Toullion from
Krohne GmbH.
 

Chapter 2   Aim and Motivation

2.1 Aim
The objective of the project was to quantify the effect of pipe bends on the measurement accuracy of the
Optiswirl vortex meter. Standard bend disturbances were to be investigated according to the definitions in
Technische Richtlinien der PTB (1989) and of Legal Metrology (1989). I must produce a table of correction
values for calibration of the flow meter at various distances downstream. This was to be achieved through
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, verified by experiment.

2.2 Motivation
The placement leads on from previous work at Krohne GmbH. However until now bend disturbances according
to the OIML standards have not been investigated at Krohne GmbH. I have found a significant error (as
much as 4.5%) in the vortex meter measurement after various bend configurations. This is important for a
number of reasons. A fundamental reason is that the customer requires accurate flow metering. Details of
the target market are provided in Section 4.1.1, however for an understanding of the motivation of this project
a simple example suffices.

Germany imported $50billion of natural gas in 2004, with a 4.5% measurement error this corresponds to $2.5billion. Clearly with such large sums involved it is important that both importers and exporters can be sure of what exactly they are buying/selling. Currently the Optiswirl vortex meter handbook recommends that the meter is placed 30 pipe diameters downstream of a double bend. This is inconvenient for large diameters as illustrated in Figure 2.1, a pipeline in Ukraine with a diameter of circa 0.2m. In this case a straight section of 6m would be required but a not uncommon pipeline diameter of 1m would need 30m of straight pipe.

My work is necessary to reduce the recommended upstream length without compromising on the measurement accuracy. Although my results won't be used directly for the large pipe diameters, as further research is required to understand how my results can be scaled up, they are a vital first step. Also the results for the DN25 shall be useful for a large fraction of the consumers as the DN25 is the best selling meter size at Krohne GmbH.