Turbine Flow Meters for Process Measurement and Control

Turbine Flow Meters
Courtesy Flow Technology

Hile Controls of Alabama represents Flow Technology Inc., a manufacturer of turbine, magnetic, ultrasonic, and positive displacement flow meters utilized in process measurement and control. The company also manufactures flow meter calibration equipment, and they have summarized some useful information regarding turbine flow meters into a concise white paper, which is included below. The paper provides a description of how a turbine flow meter operates, and continues with a short narrative of turbine flow meter advantages for certain applications. Calibration procedures are also outlined, with a combination of technical and non-technical language that provides useful information and understanding to the expert and not so expert reader. Concepts are illustrated to provide additional clarity.

Browse the paper. The text portion is just a few pages. Share your flow measurement challenges with a product specialist and combine your process experience with their product expertise. That is where the best solutions come from.

Selection and Calibration of a Turbine Flow Meter from Hile Controls of Alabama, Inc.

Video Shows How Pressure Gauges Are Made

Mechanical pressure gauges employing Bourdon tubes are common items throughout industrial process control operations. They provide accurate and immediate indication of the pressure at their connection point, without the need for external power. It can be useful to see and understand how instruments are built and upon what principles they operate. The video included below shows the process.

Bourdon tube gauges rely on the principle that a flattened and bent tube will straighten and regain its circular cross section, to some predictable and repeatable degree, in response to an increase in the pressure of a fluid inside the tube. You can see it happen in the video. The balance of the gauge is a case, a face, and mechanical linkage to transfer the Bourdon tube motion into rotation of the indicator needle on the instrument face.

Watch the video. It's informative and well done. Wika, a globally recognized manufacturer of temperature, pressure, and level measurement instrumentation, produced the video at their manufacturing facility. Share your process instrumentation challenges and requirements with an application specialist and get the best solutions.

Severe Service and High Performance Valves - More Than Just Heavy Duty

Cutaway view of metal seated
industrial ball valve
Courtesy Marwin Valve

Industrial process control applications can be associated with some very stringent and challenging performance requirements for the physical equipment and components that are part of the process chain. In fluid based operations, control valves can be a point of significant impact from extreme fluid conditions, requiring careful design and selection consideration to assure proper performance and safety levels are maintained in a predictable way.

Industrial valves that are intended for application at the extremes are generally referred to as severe service or high performance valves. While there are plenty of published and accepted standards for industrial valves, one does not exist to precisely define a severe service valve.

So, how do you know when to focus valve selection activities on severe service or high performance valves, as opposed to those rated for general purpose? There are a number of basic criteria that might point you in that direction:

• Very extreme media or environmental temperature or pressure
• High pressure drop operation that may cause cavitation
• Rapid or extreme changes to inlet pressure
• Certain types or amounts of solids contained in the fluid

Certainly, any of these criteria might be found in an application serviceable by a general purpose valve, but their presence should be an indicator that a closer assessment of the fluid conditions and commensurate valve requirements is in order. The key element for a process stakeholder is to recognize when conditions are in evidence that might overrun the capabilities of a general purpose valve, leading to premature failure in control performance or catastrophic failure that produces an unsafe condition. Once the possibility of a severe service condition is identified, a careful analysis of the possible operating conditions will reveal the performance requirements for the valve.

There are numerous manufacturers of severe service or high performance valves, each seeming to concentrate on a particular performance niche. Marwin Valve has their own entry in the class, a high performance ball valve intended for use with pressures up to 990 psi (69 bar) and temperatures approaching 1000 deg. F (538 deg. C). Specialty construction features for service in this range includes a 3-piece body, specialty alloys for body, stem, and ball, and graphite body seals and stem packing. Numerous options and variants are available to customize the valve build to suit a replacement or new installation.

You can always get more information or discuss your special requirements with a product application specialist. They have application experience and access to technical resources that can help with selecting the right valve components to meet your severe service applications.

Marwin Valve MS3000 Series High Performance Ball Valve from Hile Controls of Alabama, Inc.

Welcome to the Alabama, Mississippi & Florida Panhandle Process Control & Instrumentation Blog!

We hope you find this new Web resource interesting and helpful. We intend to post weekly articles on "all things process control". Our goal is to be educational and informative, with posts on the operation of pressure, temperature, level and flow instrumentation, interesting application notes, product set-up procedures, and new product introductions.

Hile Alabama is committed to continuing education in automation and control. We hope this site will provide some insight toward the solution of a challenging process control requirement. If you ever have need for assistance with your application, please always feel free to contact us at 205-620-4000.