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Title: NMIA facility for calibration of flowmeters in liquid propane and butane
Author: Simon Dignan, Mark Ballico
Source: 2018 International Symposium on Fluid Flow Measurement
Year Published: 2018
Abstract: The dynamic viscosity of the fluids used for the calibration of flow meters is typically at or above that of water (1 cP, or 1 mPas), however that of low molecular weight hydrocarbons is substantially lower (e.g. propane has 0.1 cP). It is well known that viscosity can have a significant influence on flowmeter performance. NMIA has established a unique facility for the calibration of flowmeters in either propane or butane to enable custody transfer meters to be calibrated under their conditions of use. This paper will discuss the technical details of the facility: comprising a 40 L piston prover, 4000 L tanks containing each product, and 4 diameter flow loops with a capacity of 1700 L/min at up to 2000 kPa pressure drops. We also discuss the unique approach to automation of the facility: enabling up to 100 fully automated, user-programmable pressure and flow calibration points per day with meter-factor uncertainties U95 below 0.09%. The paper presents the results of measurement of the meter calibration factor for several different types of common flowmeters as a function of flow-rate for both the two low-viscosity fluids propane and butane and the other test fluids available at the NMI facility: water, gasoline and diesel. The results provide interesting insights into the practical performance of these flowmeters: for example they show that although Reynolds-number scaling can be useful in reducing calibration-fluid effects for turbine- and gear- meters, significant metering errors occur for all but positivedisplacement-type meters. The potential of the facility to support the design and calibration of flowmeters used with other commercially important low-viscosity fluids close to their boiling points, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG 0.1 cP) and anhydrous ammonia (NH3 0.3 cP), is also discussed.

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