Numerical Simulation of Turbine Flowmeter´s Three-Dimensional Flow Fields

DN 15mm turbine meter´s flow fields were simulated with CFD software FLUENT. Flow fields show that meter´s pressure loss is influenced by front-end and tail-end shapes, and radius of flow conditioner hub, the thickness of flow conditioner blades and rotor blades. There are vortices in gaps in front and back of rotor hub. And flow conditioner blades affect the intensity of vortex. Flow fields near rotor blades are uneven, for the wake flow of upstream flow conditioner blades. The rotation of rotor affects flow fields closely in front and back of it. There is not visible flow separation at suction side of rotor blades. Some advices to optimizing meter´s design were given. The method for predicting meter factor and performance curve with CFD software was put forward. The accuracy of meter factor calculated by CFD software is able to better than 2%