Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, Part E: Journal of Process
Mechanical Engineering
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Discharge coefficient equation of a segmental wedge flowmeter
J. Y. Yoon, N. W. Sung and C. H. Lee
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part E: Journal of Process Mechanical Engineering 2008 222: 79
DOI: 10.1243/09544089JPME121
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TECHNICAL NOTE 79
Discharge coefficient equation of
a segmental wedge flowmeter
J Y Yoon, N W Sung, and C H Lee*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, Kyunggi Do, Republic of Korea
The manuscript was received on 11 January 2007 and was accepted after revision for publication on 3 October 2007.
DOI: 10.1243/09544089JPME121
Abstract: The discharge coefficient is reported for a flowmeter based on a segmental wedge
device having a vertex angle of 908 for varying ratios of pipe diameter D to characteristic free
flow dimension H at the wedge. The current work suggests that the segmental wedge makes a
reliable flow-metering device, with a near constant discharge coefficient over a wide range of
Reynolds numbers. A correlation is provided for the discharge coefficient as a function of H/D.
Keywords: segmental wedge, discharge coefficient, wedge flowmeter, Reynolds number
1 INTRODUCTION of many differential producer systems exist [2 – 7].
In addition, a great deal of work has been documen-
Accurate measurement of flowrate has been widely ted on the topic of the accuracy, capability, and
used in fields such as chemical processes, semicon- affectivity.
ductor manufacturing, and petroleum industry. On the basis of the well-known Bernoulli theory,
Among the many flow-metering instruments, differ- restriction devices with various geometries have
ential producers [1] are commonly used because been introduced for specialized needs. For the
they have been proved not only for many decades measurement of two-phase flow consisting of air
by engineers but also for economic purposes as and water, Morrison et al. [8] suggested the slotted
they are cost effective. Two basic classes of flow- orifice. As the product of flow coefficient and expan-
meters are differential producers [1] and linear flow- sion factor is only a function of mixture quality, total
meters. Differential-producer flowmeters create a flowrate can be determined easily by obtaining this
restriction in the flow field. When the flow is con- product and by using the density of liquid or gas.
tracted, either gradually or abruptly, kinetic energy Sondh et al. [9] have developed an orifice that could
increases at the expense of potential energy (static change H/D according to the amount of flowrate
pressure). The difference between pressure at the and designed an optimum shape of the obstruction
full pipe section and that in the vicinity of the con- body that is capable of measuring linear variation of
traction is related to the square root of the velocity the flowrate with its position for a constant pressure
at the full section minus the square root of the vel- differential. Similar applications have been briefly
ocity at the contraction. Fluid properties and the described by Hayward [10] and Singh et al. [11].
abruptness of the contraction also play a role in the As an attempt for new differential producers,
operation of these flowmeters. The differential pro- devices with segmental wedge are widely used for
ducer system is studied well using differential the measurement of flowrate, especially for particles
pressure caused by an obstruction such as an orifice, with fluids, slurry fluids, or highly viscous fluids.
a nozzle, or a venturi tube, and international stan- The measuring capabilities, wide turn-down ratio,
dardizations for theory, calibration, and installation low cost, and easy installation are additional advan-
tages of the segmental wedge device. In order to
improve the accuracy of the segmental wedge for
*Corresponding author: Department of Mechanical Engineering,
practical uses as a flow-metering device, an analysis
Hanyang University, 1271 Sa 1 dong, San-grok Gu, Ansan-ci,
of the discharge coefficient over a wide range of geo-
Kyunggi Do 425791, Republic of Korea. email: leemech@
metric conditions must be carried out quantitatively.
hanyang.ac.kr
JPME121 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part E: J. Process Mechanical Engineering
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80 J Y Yoon, N W Sung, and C H Lee
The objectives of this study is investigated on the dis-
charge coefficients of the segmental wedge over a
wide range of H/D’s at differential pressure tapping,
based on the fixed distance between the edge line of
the end-side of wedge element and the centre line
having constant wedge angle. The unique character-
istic of discharge coefficient of the segmental wedge
over a wide range of H/D’s has been discussed in
detail. Fig. 2 Spool of segmental wedge and location of
tapping for static pressure
2 WEDGE DESIGN contracted area to the pipe area, DP the differential
pressure produced by the restriction device, and r
The geometries of segments that contract the cross- the fluid density.
sectional area of the pipe are divided into V-shaped The discharge coefficient Cd is introduced to con-
restriction type and flat plate restriction type, as vert the ideal flowrate into actual flowrate and
shown in Fig. 1. The flat plate segmental wedge, or defined as
the so-called segmental orifice, has been studied on
the installation directions such as differential pressure Qactual
Cd ¼ ð2Þ
tapping, piping, and tolerance as well as discharge Qtheoretical
coefficient [1]. The segmental orifice is a special type,
in which the vertex angle of the segmental wedge is As shown in Fig. 2, the contracted area by the seg-
zero. However, the differential pressure tapping of seg- mental wedge can be expressed as
ments having a non-zero vertex angle cannot be the
same as the flange tap, corner tap, or D-D/2 tap. The pmD2
reason is that the V-shaped segment from the top of AC ¼ ð3Þ
4
the pipe and holes for sensing the differential pressure
must be separated, which means that the discharge where m is the non-dimensional value and expressed
coefficient of the segmental wedge is different from as
that at the segmental orifice. In other words, the open-
ing area, differential pressure tapping location, and 1 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
m¼ fcos1 ð1 2ZÞ 2ð1 2ZÞ Zð1 ZÞg ð4Þ
angle of segmental wedge are important parameters. p
In the present work, the segmental wedges are
designed for five different opening areas and 908 fixed Z is the rate of the opening height H to the pipe diam-
wedge angle, and the locations of differential pressure eter D.
taps at 1.0 diameter of the pipe to both upstream and
downstream directions are illustrated in Fig. 2.
Similar to conventional differential pressure flow- 3 EXPERIMENTAL METHOD AND
metering devices having obstructions, the theoretical METHODOLOGY
volumetric flowrate applying the continuity and Ber-
noulli equations can be defined as A schematic diagram of the experimental apparatus is
shown in Fig. 3. Consider a large tank with capacity of
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 1 m3. Throughout the experiment, the temperature
1YAc 2DP
Qtheoretical ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð1Þ was maintained constant at 25 8C with the help of a
ð1 m Þ 2 r temperature controller. Water form the tank was cir-
culated through the metering flow loop using a cen-
where 1 is the expansion factor for compressible trifugal pump. The metering flow loop from
fluids, Y is the thermal expansion factor, AC the con- 154 mm (ANSI 150A STD) pipe consisted of a mag-
tracted area of a restriction device, m the ratio of the netic flowmeter, five wedge elements with different
H/D ratios, and 908 wedge angle. The differential
pressure and temperature upstream 50D and down-
stream 25D from the test section are measured. The
spool piping was 150 mm inside diameter pipe
(SCH40) with differential pressure taps located at
both upstream and downstream at 1.0 diameter
from the centre-line of segmental wedge on top of
Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of segmental elements the pipe. For separate uses, static pressure holes
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part E: J. Process Mechanical Engineering JPME121 # IMechE 2008
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Discharge coefficient equation of a flowmeter 81
Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of flowrate test apparatus
were made through a 0.1 pipe diameter at the same
side. Reynolds numbers ranging from 12 000 to over
380 000 were investigated with water flowrate ranging
from 6.0 to 200 m3/h. In order to make sure of fully
developed flow into the segmental wedge spool, a
long straight pipe measuring approximately 50 pipe
diameters was installed.
Five different-sized segmental wedges were investi-
gated in various combinations of Reynolds numbers.
However, the angle of segmental wedge was fixed to
908. The H/D varied from 0.7 to 0.3. Only one spool
for segmental wedge was used replacing the wedge
elements. Figure 2 shows the schematic diagram of
the segmental wedge spool. In addition, the design
details of the present work and previous study are
given in Table 1.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The measurements of discharge coefficient of seg-
mental wedge in circular pipe flow were carried out
by changing H/D, which had five different values:
0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, and 0.7, with fixed differential
pressure tapping location. The experimental values
of the discharge coefficient are shown in Fig. 4 and
Table 1 Geometric characteristic of segmental wedge
and pressure tapping location
Differential pressure tapping
locations from the center line
of wedge element
Wedge Present
Element m H/D angle work Oguri
Wedge 1 0.252 0.3 908 1D– 1D None None
Wedge 2 0.374 0.4 None None
Wedge 3 0.500 0.5 0.5D– 0.75D–
0.5D 0.75D
Wedge 4 0.627 0.6 0.4D– 0.65D–
0.4D 0.65D Fig. 4 Discharge coefficients of segmental wedge with
Wedge 5 0.748 0.7 0.3D– 0.55D–
0.3D 0.55D
H/D: (a) 0.3, (b) 0.4, (c) 0.5, (d) 0.6, and (e) 0.7
as to Reynolds number
JPME121 # IMechE 2008 Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part E: J. Process Mechanical Engineering
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82 J Y Yoon, N W Sung, and C H Lee
are plotted in accordance with increasing Reynolds sensed around contraction geometry, and the inverse
number. From the previous result [5, 7], with differ- of that would be reasonable. The data about differen-
ent H/D ratios and pressure tapping location, the seg- tial pressure distribution of segmental wedge or the
mental wedge meters exhibit nearly constant location of the minimum static pressure and recovery
discharge coefficient over a wide range of Reynolds of dropped static pressure is necessary to verify the
number. In the current article, following the previous variations for the discharge coefficient of segmental
results, the discharge coefficient is constant. It is wedge.
found that the discharge coefficient with changing
H/D and fixed differential tapping location increases
with increased H/D and with decreased H/D ¼ 0.5.
When decreasing H/D is more than 0.5, the differen-
5 TOWARDS THE EQUATION FOR THE
tial pressure tap is located on the upstream of the
DISCHARGE COEFFICIENTS
vena-contracta and, when increasing H/D is more
than 0.5, the differential pressure tap is located on
the downstream of the vena-contracta, which First, the applicability of wedge meters to monitor the
recovers the pressure. flowrate was investigated. A flow loop consisting of
The overall values are summarized in Fig. 5. The wedge meters was designed and developed. The
range of Reynolds numbers at upstream pipe flow discharge coefficients were determined for various
was 12 000 to 380 000. different tapping locations. The results indicate that
It is seen that, for a fixed H/D, the discharge the wedge meters are feasible flow-measuring
coefficient of the segmental wedge in that range has devices for slug (two-phase flows). As it is possible
constant values. It is evident, that this is influenced to derive an empirical equation by fitting calibration
directly by H/D rate and differential pressure data, in the current article, the equation for the dis-
tapping location, and their relations could not be charge coefficient of a segmental wedge was derived.
expressed as linearly proportional connections. For The unique dependent parameter was chosen to the
H/D ¼ 0.5, the discharge coefficient has the smallest H/D; therefore, the discharge coefficient is only a
values, as indicated in Fig. 4(c), which has an average function of one. The behaviour of discharge
value of 0.786. Further variations, i.e. increases or coefficient of segmental wedge versus H/D in Fig. 5
decrease of H/D, result in variations of the discharge has a cave with strong non-linearity. The resultant
coefficient only to shift to a positive direction. With functional relation between discharge coefficient
the increase in H/D from 0.5 to 0.7, the discharge and H/D simulating non-linearity is
coefficients increase to 0.930. Similarly, the discharge
coefficients for 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 H/D increase up to Cd ¼ 0:9136Z 0:1303 23:363Z 4 þ 50:378Z 3
0.813. Especially, a rapid increase in discharge ð5Þ
coefficient is seen, as H/D increases above 0.5. 37:246Z 2 þ 11:062Z 1:1055
Obviously, the increase in discharge coefficient
means that the decrease in differential pressure is
for 0.3 4 Z 4 0.7
6 CONCLUSION
The characteristics of the discharge coefficient of seg-
mental wedge with five different H/D’s, fixed location
of differential pressure tapping from the centreline of
wedge element, and 908 wedge vertex angle are
demonstrated. The relationship between discharge
coefficients and H/D has been developed to an
equation that can help designers to select fine size
for more adequate flowrate within engineering toler-
ance limits. The exact mechanism, however, causing
the characteristics of discharge coefficient is not
clearly known in the current work. More details of
the wedge vertex angle or sharpness of wedge
Fig. 5 Performance characteristics of discharge element and various differential pressure tapping
coefficients at various H/D techniques require further research.
Proc. IMechE Vol. 222 Part E: J. Process Mechanical Engineering JPME121 # IMechE 2008
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Discharge coefficient equation of a flowmeter 83
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