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The Problem – Pressure Drop Across Natural Gas Meter When natural gas passes through a meter, a pressure drop occurs. This pressure drop must be as low as possible because it takes energy to move the gas through meter; high meter pressure drops mean high gas transmission costs when many thousands of meters are taken into account. Yet gas meters often operate at high static pressures. Verifying the low pressure drop across a meter at its operating pressure is an important diagnostic. How can the low pressure drop across the meter be measured if the line pressure is several hundred psig?
The Solution A differential pressure transducer is the best way to measure small pressure drops across the gas meter, even at high static pressures. In a differential pressure transducer, there are two ports: + and -. The transducer is plumbed across the gas meter such that the + port is on the upstream side and the – port on the downstream side. The difference in the pressure applied to each port is the pressure drop through the meter. If the upstream side is 500 psig and the downstream side is 499 psig, there is 1 psi of pressure drop across the meter. A differential pressure transducer is capable of having a full scale of, say, a few psid, while operating at static pressures of several hundred or thousands of psig. The output of the DP transducer reflects just the pressure drop of interest.
Validyne Products The Validyne PS309 portable manometer is ideal for checking the pressure drop across a gas meter. The PS309 is available in differential pressure ranges as low as 0.1 psid, while accepting static pressures as high as 3200 psig. The PS309 is battery powered so it can be carried in a toolbox and used in the field away from other sources of power. The PS309 has a digital indicator so that the pressure drop across the meter can be viewed in convenient engineering units. The 0.25% FS accuracy of the PS309 provides an easy way to verify that the pressure drop is within the required limits for any given meter type.
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| Phone: 818.886.2057 || Email: Sales@validyne.com |
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