Technical literature

Finding lost accuracy before it shows up on the balance sheet

Common orifice defects ranked by the error they cause, why almost all of them bias the reading low, and what a 40 micrometre edge radius requirement means in practice.

Permanent pressure loss is an operating cost, fixed at the design stage

€7,600 a year of pumping energy on a single DN 200 line — and the arithmetic showing that once flow, size and Δp are specified, the choice of element no longer changes the loss.

Why flow elements that cannot be inspected never are

Three plate-access architectures compared on shutdown, depressurisation and crew hours: 6–8 hours at orifice flanges against 20–40 minutes on a dual chamber fitting.

What an orifice meter run genuinely has to demonstrate — and which tests the standards have already carried out for you

Type approval against conformity, the three compliant flow-conditioner routes in AGA 3 and ISO 5167, and how to write a clause that secures the assurance without buying the same test twice.

What wet, CO₂-rich service does to a meter run — and which decisions cannot be made after the order is placed

A 3 mm corrosion allowance consumed in about seven months at the film-free rate, and the 0,3 kPa H₂S line that decides whether ISO 15156 applies at all — about 38 ppm on an 80 bar stream.

Tapping orientation on steam, gas and liquid service

Where the tappings go on a horizontal line for each phase, why they move on a vertical line, and the impulse line slope that keeps the reading honest.

Condensate pot placement and sizing

Symmetry, elevation and volume for seal pots on steam and hot condensate duty, including the case where the transmitter sits above the line.

Eccentric, segmental and conditioning bores

The three cases where a concentric bore is the wrong answer — entrained solids, wet gas and a line you cannot give straight pipe to — and what you give up in each.

Material selection for sour and chloride service

316/316L, duplex (UNS S31803 / S32205), Alloy 400 (UNS N04400) and Alloy C-276 (UNS N10276) against H₂S partial pressure and chloride content, with the NACE MR0175 hardness limits we machine to.

Clearance above a dual chamber fitting

The vertical space a plate carrier needs to come out, per line size — the dimension most often missed at layout stage and most expensive to fix.

Reading a plate that was installed backwards

What a reversed plate does to the indicated flow, how to recognise it from trend data alone, and the tag orientation convention that prevents it.

Flange joints, tapping positions and tapping-hole edges

What ISO 5167-2 allows at a joint in the upstream meter tube, at each flange tapping and at the edge of the tapping hole, and what a millimetre out of place does to the discharge coefficient.

Feedwater and main steam metering on a combined cycle unit

Element selection across the water and steam cycle of a 250 MW block, from condensate to superheated main steam, with the material and rating step at each point.

Fuel gas metering at a gas turbine inlet skid

A dual chamber run sized for turndown across two turbine loads, with the conditioning arrangement that fitted the available space.

Slurry measurement: wedge or plate

What decides between a wedge and a concentric plate in slurry service, and the wear allowance carried on the wedge.