Numerical analysis of liquid flow measurement using multipath ultrasonic phased array flowmeter

In this paper, multipath ultrasonic flowmeter using phased array transducer is introduced to measure the flowrate. In the proposed flowmeter, the path velocities are achieved by dynamic beam steering via phased array sensor then numerical integration is used to calculate the flowrate. Turbulent flow profile through a straight pipe, flow field downstream of single bend, and double bend are studied in this paper. For each case, the influence of the number of paths, beam angle, and installation angle on the performance of the proposed flowmeter is discussed. Because of symmetric velocity profile for turbulent flow through the straight pipe, relative errors are not dependent on the installation angle and its minimum value is obtained 0.03 % under [±56.6°, 0] path arrangement. Relative errors after single and double bend depend on the installation angle due to the asymmetric flow field. In 3-path configuration, for velocity profile after single bend and double bend, the minimum error range is 1.35 % and 2.38 % under [±55^o, 0] and [±45^o, 0] path arrangement, respectively. In 5-path arrangement, after single bend and double bend, the minimum error range is achieved by 0.14 % and 1.03 % under [±70^o, ±35^o, 0] and [±65^o, ±25^o, 0], respectively. The validity of multipath ultrasonic phased array flowmeter after the single bend in Re = 2 × 10⁵ to 10⁶ has been examined with the computational fluid dynamics simulation. The maximum absolute relative error under [±55^o,0] and [±70^o,±35^o,0] was achieved at about 3 % and 1.8 % respectively.