Title
Towards a calibration-free ultrasonic clamp-on flow meter: Pipe geometry measurements using matrix arrays
Author
Massaad, J.
van Neer, P.L.M.J.
van Willigen, D.M.
Pertijs, M.A.P.
de Jong, N.
Verweij, M.D.
Publication year
2019
Abstract
Current ultrasonic clamp-on flow meters are manually calibrated. This process is based on manual placement of two single-element transducers along a pipe wall. Due to the usually unknown pipe properties and inhomogeneities in the pipe geometry, the axial distance of the transducers needs to be manually calibrated to align the location of the emitted beam on the receiver. In this work it is presented an automatic calibration procedure, based on matrix transducer arrays, to provide calibration information that would normally be entered into the instrument manually prior to ultrasonic clamp-on flow measurements. The calibration consists of two steps: First, along the axial direction of the pipe, Lamb waves are excited and recorded. Then, the measured time signals are combined with the Rayleigh-Lamb dispersion equation to extract pipe wall thickness and bulk wave sound speeds. Second, along the circumferential direction of the pipe, a specific Lamb wave mode is excited and recorded, from which the pipe diameter is estimated. The potential of both calibration procedures is shown, and the necessity of a matrix transducer array (i.e. small elements) is highlighted. © 2019 Acoustical Society of America. All rights reserved.
Subject
Calibration
Flow measurement
Surface waves
Transducers
Ultrasonic waves
Automatic calibration
Calibration free
Calibration information
Calibration procedure
Circumferential direction
Dispersion equations
Pipe wall thickness
Single element transducers
Flowmeters
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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5590af9f-f4d8-4dfc-a3f0-9ae6f74bbd64
TNO identifier
881859
Publisher
Acoustical Society of America
ISSN
1939-800X
Source
Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 178th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, ASA 2019, 2 December 2019 through 6 December 2019
Article number
65001
Document type
conference paper