Natural Gas Flow Meters Types

Natural gas flow meters can be divided into the following types according to the measurement principle.

Differential Pressure Flow Meter: Orifice Plate, Balanced, Venturi, Nozzle.

Velocity Flow Meter: Gas Turbine, Precession Vortex, Gas Ultrasonic.

Positive Displacement Flow Meter: Diaphragm, Gas Roots.

Mass Flow Meter: Coriolis.

Early natural gas metering mainly used orifice plate flow meters. With the development of technology and the increase in demand, more advanced metering methods such as gas turbine flow meters, gas ultrasonic flow meters and gas Roots flow meters have gradually developed.

In recent years, with the rapid development of technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), big data and AI (artificial intelligence), intelligent, remote and automated natural gas metering systems have gradually become popular.  It brings new opportunities and challenges to the development of natural gas metering technology.

For flow meters used in trade measurement, Europe mainly uses turbine and Roots flow meters. For example, in the Netherlands, gas turbine and gas Roots flow meters account for about 80%. In Canada, gas turbine flow meters account for about 90%. And in the United States, orifice plates account for about 80%.

On the whole, the use of orifice plates reached its peak in the 1970s. The use of gas turbine flowmeters reached its peak in the 1980s. And the use of gas ultrasonic flowmeters reached its peak in the mid-to-late 1990s.

People have high hopes for ultrasonic flowmeters because of their simple and clear flow equations, wide range, high accuracy, firmness, reliability and no pressure loss.  However, due to the short actual application time, some problems have been exposed, such as noise, straight pipe length, dirt, etc., which lead to out-of-tolerance. In addition, due to price factors, users still tend to focus on mature gas turbines flowmeter, gas Roots flowmeter, etc. when selecting.