Influence of the Wetness on Flow Rate Measurement of Wet Steam Using a Vortex Flow Meter

Mainly steam is utilized as a means for thermal energy supply in industrial fields. It is important to be aware of the steam flow rate in the view point of energy management. However, steam becomes wet in many cases in the process to be sent through steam pipes to machinery using steam. It is well known that the wetness of steam sometimes causes measurement errors of the steam flow rate, and there has scarcely been the established method for estimating the error caused by the wetness of steam flow. Accordingly, we conducted the experiments of wet steam flow rate measurement to clarify the measurement error caused by the wetness of steam. This paper reports the measurement using a vortex flow meter, following our previous paper using an orifice flow meter (1) . The experiments were conducted with the conditions in changing the flow rate, pressure and wetness. As a result, the correlation between the measurement error and the flow condition was clarified.