Improving the cross correlation method of indirect flow measurement by water injection and modeling - 245
This paper presents a technique to improve the Cross Correlation Function (CCF) method for indirect flow measurement. Unlike other methods, the CCF method does not need a specific instrument or tool for flow measurements. Instead, the delay time between two sensors can be derived by applying the CCF. A water flow loop was constructed to investigate the CCF method for flow measurement. Because the inherent process temperature variations were small when compared to significant amounts of measurement and process noise, inaccurate flow measurements were obtained. The performance of the CCF method could be improved by increasing the system signal-to-noise ratio, which is the process noise divided by the measurement noise. For this reason, a periodic injection of different temperature water was used to increase the process temperature variation. The results were favorable. However, several design variables needed to be selected. To assist, a CFD simulation was utilized to optimize the distance between sensors and injection point, the rate of injection flow, and other related variables. The results show that CCF optimization of these variables produces better flow measurement performance over a range of flow velocities. (authors)