Effect of Tee and Valve on the Flow Measurement Accuracy for Turbulent Pipe Flow With Flow Conditioner

This work describes the effect of a Tee and a Valve on the flow measurement accuracy and the performances of the E´toile flow straightener described by the standard ISO 5167 to produce the fully developed pipe flow with these disturbances. Simulation is carried out for an air flow in 100mm pipe diameter with a Reynolds number between 10⁴ and 10⁶. The code used for this work is Fluent V6.3, where the Navier-Stokes equations are solved by the finite volumes method with K-ε model like turbulent model. The results show that for the disturbance valve 50% closed, the length of establishment seems to be reached at 25D downstream the E´toile where the flow gyration angle is reduced practically to zero value. But for the Tee disturbance the results show that the flow needs more than 25D to reach the profiles requested by the standards. An experimental study is essential to validate these results for choosing a standard disturbance which will be examined with conditioners quoted in standard 5167 and thereafter the development of a new flow conditioner.