3D Fluid flow in an Elbow Meter-CFD Model

Abstract

Elbow meter is one of the common flow measurement systems which are used to determine the pressure difference occurring as a fluid flows change by resistance. This differential pressure exists when a flowing changes direction due to a pipe turn. The pressure difference results from the centrifugal force. . Since pipe elbows exists in plants and its cost is very low. However, the accuracy is very poor [2]. For this reason, the purpose of this paper is to run a CFD Model (Computational Fluid Dynamics) at Elbow meter using Solidworks Flow Simulation [1] with different pipe sizes, ranging from 6 to 12 nominal diameter. The CFD Simulation will be extended to run with using different fluid types, varying as air, steam, oil and water. The goal is to determine the sensitivity of flow measurements in regards to these parameters. CFD results will be compared to a corresponding theoretical solution to investigate how much the accuracy can be improved by changing the geometry of elbow pipe and fluid type.