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Updated: Aug 15, 2025

Fabrication and Testing of Microfluidic Optomechanical Oscillators
Published on: May 29, 2014
CFD Model of a Mechanical Oscillator Flowmeter
Maciej Szudarek1, Mateusz Turkowski1, Adam Piechna2
1Institute of Metrology and Biomedical Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, 02-525 Warszawa, Poland.
Abstract:
Most of the studies on mechanical oscillator flowmeters were conducted in the '80s and '90s when computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was not a viable scientific tool in flow metrology. Still, many topics related to the application of mechanical oscillator flowmeters require further investigation. In the article, a numerical model of a mechanical oscillator flowmeter is developed with the commercial software ANSYS Fluent. The model is validated against experimental data obtained at a water calibration stand. The influence of the selected turbulence model, dynamic mesh method, as well as grid and time step size is studied. The model's qualitative behavior is correct, allowing investigation into the flowmeter operation in detail. It can provide a base for the improvement of the flowmeter's performance. Relative differences in the frequency of oscillations did not exceed 4% for a DN50 flowmeter in the flow rate range (2-40) m3/h.
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