Calculating Flow Using Pressure Drop

As many of you may see in industry, sometimes instead of a flowmeter, they'd put a pressure drop indicator around a piece of equipment, I'm trying to calculate the flow in this equipment to ultimately calculate the efficiency of a steam turbine.

The equipment is a steam surface condenser i want to calculate the flow in the tube side where there is sea water, the tubes have two passes and are in u-tube shape.

Does anyone recommend a good reference for this calculation?

Also,
The tubes are carbon steel coated with titanium, does anyone know the roughness of such material?

Best

Edited by Qasem215, 19 October 2020 - 08:27 AM.

Perhaps a clamp on ultrasonic flow meter might be a possible option for you.

It is probably more accurate to sample the turbine exhaust to determine the moisture content. Look for a service in your area.

 

Bobby

Hi ,

You may use the resource attached , page 60 . This will give an estimate only :

Note 1 : 

          You need to make sure your P gauges are calibrated before the test . 

          Regarding the absolute roughness , I read somewhere 45 microns for titanium . You need to investigate              using your favorite search engine.

 

 

To me , as Thorium90 already suggested , I will consider a non intrusive or portable flowmeter to get your answer .

      

You may contract a third party to perform the job. 

 

Note 2 : It's always good to have this type of flowmeter in a plant to perform mass and heat balance 

 

Good luck

Breizh 

Thank you all, will definitely consider sampling and flowmeter options.

I also read somewhere that the roughness is around 50 micron but since it's a coating, i was slightly discouraged to directly use it.

Unfortunately in the PFD, there isn't even an estimate for the pressure drop as the outlet flow is just mixed with other streams

Much appreciation to all of you gentlemen