Numerical computations of turbulent flow through orifice flowmeter

Abstract

Turbulent, incompressible flow through orifice flow meter is numerically investigated using OpenFOAM software. Turbulence is modeled using RANS approach, and three turbulence models are tested: standard k-e , k −w and Launder Sharma model. Results for pressure drop on the orifice are compared to experimental results and good agreement is found for all turbulent models, with the most accurate results obtained with k−e model. Velocity and pressure distribution in whole computational domain is analyzed, with special attention to the region in proximity to the orifice where primary and secondary vortex structures are detected. Additionally, numerical computations are also performed on automatically generated mesh using snappyHexMesh utility and similar results for the pressure drop are obtained as the ones on the block-structured grid.