Conference article

In certain applications, the use of a direct flow meter to measure flow rates could be very expensive due to size, and may give inaccurate results due to adverse operating conditions. One alternative is to use an open channel flow measurement technique. The use of a hydraulic structure such as Venturi flume with one point level measurement is robust enough to estimate the flow rate. However, flow rates estimated by using the flow-depth relationship established in the channel are only accurate in steady state conditions. For conditions where the free surface flow is influenced by waves such as flows in oil platform, river flow in hydropower, fluidized powder transport, etc., steady state free surface level is barely reached within the required control time. This study presents a smart system for continuous measurement of fluid flow rate in a Venturi channel, which is required for control purposes. The method developed and presented here is based on merging the level measurements with the one-dimensional Saint Venant equation through a Kalman filter to provide realtime estimation of flow rate for both Newtonian and non- Newtonian fluids.

Smart Sensor; Venturi channel; Saint-Venant Equation; Real-time estimation; Kalman filter