Flow Conditioning for Improved Piping Arrangement

Currently, there are many fluid-flow conditioning products which are typically inserted downstream of a pipe bend. This does reduce the number of pipe diameters required to reestablish fully developed flow, however a 50% reduction in pipe diameters cannot be achieved with current technology. Additionally, there are tabbed elbow flow conditioners that address the problem; however, these have high differential pressure and cause turbulence in the flow stream in transient or off nominal conditions. The consequence of noise due to turbulence is not an appropriate solution for DON needs.Technology in Practice (TIP) proposes the design of an Elbow Flow Conditioner (EFC) which does not use tabs, but instead uses flow vanes. This design mitigates differential pressure and turbulence. TIP will define trade spaces to investigate differential pressure, the minimum number of pipe diameters required to reestablish fully developed flow, and cost effectiveness of multiple geometries and surface finishes, respectively. Once an optimized design has been established, TIP will design and fabricate a flow loop to test the prototype EFC using NIST traceable instrumentation in a A2LA certified test lab.