Granted Patent B2

US 12,188,807 · App. 18/072,325 · Granted Jan 7, 2025

Inventor: Gregor J. Brown (Prestwick, GB)

Assignee: SENSIA LLC

G01F25/10G01F1/667

Abstract

Claims (142)

1. A method of detecting one or more integration errors, the method being performed by at least one set of computational electronics including a non-transitory computer readable medium with computer instructions stored thereon executed by a processor, the method comprising steps of:

receiving ultrasonic signals from transducers in a meter body of a flow meter associated with a conduit, the ultrasonic signals traveling along a plurality of chordal paths across the conduit wherein at least one of the plurality of chordal paths lies in a discrete chordal measurement plane across the conduit and determining a velocity on each chordal path in the flow meter;

executing a first chordal integration scheme in the flow meter using at least one of the plurality of chordal paths and a second different chordal integration scheme in the flow meter using the at least one of the plurality of chordal paths, the first chordal integration scheme being an even numbered chordal integration scheme and the second different chordal integration scheme being an odd numbered integration scheme, wherein at least one of the first chordal integration scheme and the second chordal different integration scheme are used with the velocity on each chordal path;

applying first weighting factors to the first chordal integration scheme, wherein the first weighting factors ignore a diametric chordal path used by the first chordal integration scheme;

applying second non-zero weighting factors to the second different chordal integration scheme, wherein the second non-zero weighting factors are applied to all chordal paths used by the second different chordal integration scheme;

detecting in the flow meter the one or more integration errors based on the first chordal integration scheme and the second different chordal integration scheme.

2. The method according to claim 1 further comprising selecting path locations and weighting factors of one of the first and second different chordal integration schemes to correspond with abscissae and weights of a numerical integration scheme with pre-determined abscissae.

3. The method according to claim 1 further comprising selecting path locations of one of the first and second different chordal integration schemes independent of abscissae and weights of a numerical integration scheme with pre-determined abscissae, and then calculating appropriate weighting factors for those paths.

4. The method according to claim 1 whereby one of the chordal integration schemes is implemented in a form of:

v

¯

a

=

∑

i

=

1

N

w

a

,

i

⁢

v

⁡

(

h

a

,

i

)

and another of the chordal integration schemes is implemented in a form of:

v

¯

b

=

∑

j

=

1

M

w

b

,

j

⁢

v

⁡

(

h

b

,

j

)

wherein a total number of chordal measurement planes is less than a sum of N plus M such that at least one of the chordal measurement planes at location h a,i is the same as one of the chordal measurement planes at locations h bj .

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first chordal integration scheme uses four chordal paths.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second different chordal integration scheme uses five chordal paths.

7. A system for measuring a flow rate of a fluid, the system comprising:

a meter body of a flow meter comprising multiple ultrasonic transducers, each ultrasonic transducer being used in conjunction with at least one other ultrasonic transducer to form chordal paths in across a conduit section of the meter body; and

a processor configured to use a first chordal integration scheme using ultrasonic signals across at least one first chordal path of the chordal paths and a second different chordal integration scheme using the ultrasonic signals across at least one second chordal path of the chordal paths to detect integration error, wherein at least one third chordal path of the chordal paths is common to the first and second different chordal integration schemes, the first chordal integration scheme being an even numbered chordal integration scheme and the second different chordal integration scheme being an odd numbered integration scheme, wherein at least one of the first chordal integration scheme and the second chordal integration scheme are used with a velocity on each chordal path, the ultrasonic signals traveling a plurality of chordal paths across the conduit section, wherein at least one of the plurality of chordal paths lies in a discrete chordal measurement plane across the conduit section and determining a velocity on each chordal path in the flow meter;

wherein the processor is configured to apply first weighting factors to the first chordal integration scheme, wherein the first weighting factors ignore a diametric chordal path used by the first chordal integration scheme;

wherein the processor is configured to apply second non-zero weighting factors to the second chordal integration scheme, wherein the second non-zero weighting factors are applied to all chordal paths used by the second chordal integration scheme.

8. The system according to claim 7 further comprising the first chordal integration scheme and the second different chordal integration scheme using two subsets of chordal measurement planes each with a summation that uses weighting factors that are dissimilar.

9. The system according to claim 7 wherein a chordal measurement plane contains two or more chordal paths arranged at different angles to a conduit axis such that a chordal velocity measurement in each chordal measurement plane can be made substantially independent of a non-axial flow velocity.

10. The system of claim 7 , wherein the first chordal integration scheme has four paths and the second chordal integration has five paths and two paths are shared.

11. An ultrasonic flow meter comprising:

a meter body comprising multiple ultrasonic transducers, each ultrasonic transducer being used in conjunction with at least one other ultrasonic transducer to form chordal paths across a conduit section of the meter body;

a processor configured to:

receive a first set of data based on a first chordal integration scheme using first ultrasonic signals across at least one first chordal path of the chordal paths, the first chordal integration scheme comprising:

analyzing velocity measurements of a fluid within the conduit section of the meter body, the velocity measurements received from a first number of chordal paths located in a first number of chordal planes;

receive a second set of data based on a second chordal integration scheme using second ultrasonic signals across at least one second chordal path of the chordal paths, the second chordal integration scheme configured to comprising:

analyzing the velocity measurements of the fluid within the conduit section of the meter body, the velocity measurements received from a second number of chordal paths, wherein at least one third chordal path of the chordal paths is shared between the first number of chordal paths and the second number of chordal paths, the first number of chordal paths being different than the second number of chordal paths; and

determine an integration error or integration errors based on the first set of data and the second set of data;

wherein the first chordal integration scheme is an even numbered chordal integration scheme and the second different chordal integration scheme being an odd numbered integration scheme,

wherein the processor is configured to apply first weighting factors to the first chordal integration scheme, wherein the first weighting factors ignore a diametric chordal path used by the first chordal integration scheme;

wherein the processor is configured to apply second non-zero weighting factors to the second chordal integration scheme, wherein the second non-zero weighting factors are applied to all chordal paths used by the second chordal integration scheme.

12. The flow meter of claim 11 , wherein:

the first chordal integration scheme and second chordal integration scheme are dissimilar chordal multi-path integration methods such that the processor compares overlapping chordal input data to detect the integration error, wherein the overlapping chordal input data comprises the first set of data and the second set of data; and

a total number of chordal planes is less than the total number of chordal inputs provided to the first chordal integration scheme and second chordal integration scheme.

13. The flow meter of claim 11 , wherein the first chordal integration scheme further comprising:

calculating a velocity of the fluid based on a summation of the velocity of the fluid based on one or more ultrasonic measurements received at particular locations within the first number of chordal planes and one or more weighting factors, wherein the calculated velocity is calculated via a summation:

v

¯

a

=

∑

i

=

1

N

w

a

,

i

⁢

v

⁡

(

h

a

,

i

)

wherein v a is average velocity, w a,i is a weighting factor for the first chordal integration, and v(h a,i ) is the velocity at location h a,i ; and

determining a volumetric flow rate based on the calculated velocity and an area of the conduit section.

14. The flow meter of claim 11 , wherein the second chordal integration scheme further comprises:

calculating a velocity of the fluid based on a summation of the velocity of the fluid based on one or more ultrasonic measurements received at particular locations within the first number of chordal planes and one or more weighting factors, wherein the calculated velocity is calculated via a summation:

v

¯

b

=

∑

j

=

1

M

w

b

,

j

⁢

v

⁡

(

h

b

,

j

)

wherein v b is average velocity, w b,j is a weighting factor for the second chordal integration scheme, and v(h b,j ) is the velocity at location v(h b,j ); and

determining a volumetric flow rate based on the calculated velocity and an area of the conduit section.

15. The flow meter of claim 11 , wherein the processor is further configured to:

select locations of at least one of the chordal paths of the first number of chordal paths or second number of chordal paths based on a predefined abscissa and weights of a first documented numerical integration scheme,

wherein the first documented numerical integration scheme comprises at least one of the first chordal integration scheme or second chordal integration scheme.

16. The flow meter of claim 11 , wherein the processor is further configured to:

select locations of at least one of the chordal paths of the first number of chordal paths or second number of chordal paths based on based weights of a second documented numerical integration scheme with pre-determined abscissae; and

calculate an appropriate weighting factor for the at least of the chordal paths.

17. The flow meter of claim 11 , wherein:

one of the first chordal integration scheme or second chordal integration scheme is an odd-numbered integration scheme; and

one of the first chordal integration scheme or second chordal integration scheme that is not an odd-numbered integration scheme is an even-numbered scheme.

18. The flow meter of claim 11 , wherein the first chordal integration scheme has four paths and the second chordal integration scheme has five paths.

19. The flow meter of claim 11 , wherein the first chordal integration scheme has four chordal paths.

Assignments (2)

Continuity (3)

References Cited (14)