Flow Conditioning Improves Flow Measurement Accuracy and Reduces Plant Process Costs

If you're planning to expand, upgrade or retrofit your plant in the near future, chances are that you'll be facing a real estate crisis when it comes to finding a place for all your new or upgraded equipment. The loss of space either inside plant buildings or even in outdoor installations can lead to problems with providing the upstream/downstream pipe straight runs required by pumps, compressors, valves, flow meters, blowers, burners and other devices that must have a stable material process flow in order to operate effectively. The necessary addition of elbows, expansions or reductions, and/or or spiral piping in close proximity to instrumentation and other devices often further exacerbates the problem of inadequate pipe straight runs. Too much equipment, too little space and poor piping layouts all work together to alter the process media's tangential, radial and axial velocity vectors. Flow disturbances then result, including swirl, jetting and velocity profile distortions.