Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (cfd) techniques provide investigations in conditions where the real experiment can’t be fulfilled for some reason, so these tools have found their applications in many spheres of science and technology; in particular they are widely used in flow metering.

Some of CFD applications we would like to propose and discuss in this work in the context of turbine flow meters. We discover non-drag type of turbine flow meters to check if created design with hydro-dynamic bearings should provide really floating rotor. For this purpose only numerical research can solve verification problem with minimal costs and simple realisation.

CFD models are used to examine pressure contours and velocity profiles near floating rotor in turbine flow meters. A full three-dimensional flow simulation of realistic meter configurations has been carried out. Close attention was paid to simulation of the complete geometry of turbine meters including front-end and tail-end shapes of flow conditioner hub, metering cells, etc. Some advices to meters’ designing were given.