Process Feed Water Flow Monitoring – Case Study

Project Challenges

An Aluminium Refinery in Gladstone, Queensland approached us to assist with monitoring of their process water feed to the main plant. The volume of water consumption was currently monitored and billed by the supplier of the water. The refinery does not have direct access to the meters and only receive a quarterly bill. They wanted to ascertain daily flows and identify specific consumption by production area.

Project Overview

Currently the site has multiple separate inlets metered from mag flow meters which are off site.

• Pipe OD 610mm, 300mm, 275mm and various smaller lines
• Carbon Steel
• Wall thickness 8.8 mm

Initial diagnostics indicated scale build up on the inside of the pipe.

Project Results

• A site test was required to prove that ultrasonic Flexim clamp on meters are accurate.
• The Flexim G608 dual channel clamp on flowmeter and CDM transducers were installed and flow was verified over 4 hours.
•  The mean deviation between the magflows and the clamp on ultrasonic meter was 0.4%.
• A clamp on temperature sensor was also installed and no large temperature variations were recorded.
• The diameter of the pipe was checked with a caliper/diameter tape.
• Wall thickness was tested with an ultrasonic wall thickness gauge.