In meteorology, an anemometer is a device that measures wind speed and direction. It is a common instrument used in weather stations. The earliest known description of an anemometer was by Italian architect and author Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) in 1450.
Pressure measurement is the measurement of an applied force by a fluid on a surface. Pressure is typically measured in units of force per unit of surface area. Many techniques have been developed for the measurement of pressure and vacuum. Instruments used to measure and display pressure mechanically are called pressure gauges,vacuum gauges or compound gauges. The widely used Bourdon gauge is a mechanical device, which both measures and indicates and is probably the best known type of gauge.
Flow measurement is the quantification of bulk fluid movement. Flow can be measured using devices called flowmeters in various ways. The common types of flowmeters with industrial applications are listed below:
The Venturi effect is the reduction in fluid pressure that results when a moving fluid speeds up as it flows through a constricted section of a pipe. The Venturi effect is named after its discoverer, the 18th-century Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Venturi.
An orifice plate is a device used for measuring flow rate, for reducing pressure or for restricting flow.
An ultrasonic flow meter is a type of flow meter that measures the velocity of a fluid with ultrasound to calculate volume flow. Using ultrasonic transducers, the flow meter can measure the average velocity along the path of an emitted beam of ultrasound, by averaging the difference in measured transit time between the pulses of ultrasound propagating into and against the direction of the flow or by measuring the frequency shift from the Doppler effect. Ultrasonic flow meters are affected by the acoustic properties of the fluid and can be impacted by temperature, density, viscosity and suspended particulates depending on the exact flow meter. They vary greatly in purchase price but are often inexpensive to use and maintain because they do not use moving parts, unlike mechanical flow meters.
Originally the gas flow computer was a mechanical or later a pneumatic or hydraulic computing module, subsequently superseded in most applications by an electronic module, as the primary elements switched from transmitting the measured variables from pneumatic or hydraulic pressure signals to electric current as explosion-proof ) and then intrinsically safe transmitters became available, that simply provided a dedicated gas flow computer function. Today "gas flow computers" as such have become uncommon, since gas flow computing is a subfunction of a data acquisition and control program implemented with programmable logic controller (PLCs) and remote terminal unit (RTUs); with the rise of smart transmitters in the early 1980s, these functions have also been incorporated within the field transmitters themselves.
A mass (air) flow sensor (MAF) is a sensor used to determine the mass flow rate of air entering a fuel-injected internal combustion engine.
Choked flow is a compressible flow effect. The parameter that becomes "choked" or "limited" is the fluid velocity.
A wet gas is any gas with a small amount of liquid present. The term "wet gas" has been used to describe a range of conditions varying from a humid gas which is gas saturated with liquid vapour to a multiphase flow with a 90% volume of gas. There has been some debate as to its actual definition, and there is currently no fully defined quantitative definition of a wet gas flow that is universally accepted.
An air flow bench is a device used for testing the internal aerodynamic qualities of an engine component and is related to the more familiar wind tunnel.
A pressure regulator is a valve that controls the pressure of a fluid to a desired value, using negative feedback from the controlled pressure. Regulators are used for gases and liquids, and can be an integral device with a pressure setting, a restrictor and a sensor all in the one body, or consist of a separate pressure sensor, controller and flow valve.
Water metering is the practice of measuring water use. Water meters measure the volume of water used by residential and commercial building units that are supplied with water by a public water supply system. They are also used to determine flow through a particular portion of the system.
A positive displacement meter is a type of flow meter that requires fluid to mechanically displace components in the meter in order for flow measurement. Positive displacement (PD) flow meters measure the volumetric flow rate of a moving fluid or gas by dividing the media into fixed, metered volumes. A basic analogy would be holding a bucket below a tap, filling it to a set level, then quickly replacing it with another bucket and timing the rate at which the buckets are filled. With appropriate pressure and temperature compensation, the mass flow rate can be accurately determined.
Custody Transfer in the oil and gas industry refers to the transactions involving transporting physical substance from one operator to another. This includes the transferring of raw and refined petroleum between tanks and railway tank cars; onto ships, and other transactions. Custody transfer in fluid measurement is defined as a metering point (location) where the fluid is being measured for sale from one party to another. During custody transfer, accuracy is of great importance to both the company delivering the material and the eventual recipient, when transferring a material.
Turndown ratio refers to the width of the operational range of a device, and is defined as the ratio of the maximum capacity to minimum capacity. For example, a device with a maximum output of 10 units and a minimum output of 2 units has a turndown ratio of 5. The term is commonly used with measurement devices and combustion plant like boilers and gasifiers.
A heat meter or energy meter is a device which measures thermal energy provided by a source or delivered to a sink, by measuring the flow rate of the heat transfer fluid and the change in its temperature (ΔT) between the outflow and return legs of the system. It is typically used in industrial plants for measuring boiler output and heat taken by process, and for district heating systems to measure the heat delivered to consumers.
Flow conditioning ensures that the "real world" environment closely resembles the "laboratory" environment for proper performance of inferential flowmeters like orifice, turbine, coriolis, ultrasonic etc.
In the petroleum industry, allocation refers to practices of breaking down measures of quantities of extracted hydrocarbons across various contributing sources. Allocation aids the attribution of ownerships of hydrocarbons as each contributing element to a commingled flow or to a storage of petroleum may have a unique ownership. Contributing sources in this context are typically producing petroleum wells delivering flows of petroleum or flows of natural gas to a commingled flow or storage.
A density meter (densimeter) is a device which measures the density of an object or material. Density is usually abbreviated as either or . Typically, density either has the units of or . The most basic principle of how density is calculated is by the formula:
Digital indicator
All-analog indicator
