Twelve months ago, Titan decided to make the significant investment in a new calibration rig, which would both increase their capacity and improve their capability to calibrate their liquid flow measurement devices. Having just received delivery of this new rig, it is being commissioned and will be ready for use within the month.
Jeremy Thorne, Operations Manager at Titan Enterprises, commented: “Historically, the production of our flowmeters has been limited by the flowmeter calibration capability. The new flow rig will increase our calibration capacity at flow rates of less than 4 L/min. This will enable us to increase our production throughput as well as expanding Titan’s total range of flow calibration.”
Why should flow meters be calibrated?
Engineers, scientists and measurement specialists rely on a flowmeter’s accuracy to maintain or improve the financial viability, quality and safety of a product or process.
Used within a wide variety of applications, including pharmaceuticals, aerospace, food and beverage, energy and agro/petrochemical, in which accurate flow measurement is critical, regular calibration ensures that these measuring devices continue to operate within acceptable limits.
Jeremy added: “As well as calibrating our flowmeters during production, we also offer a recalibration service to our customers. The performance and accuracy of flowmeters, even the most rugged ones, will degrade with time. Mechanical meters will wear and electronic ones can suffer minor degradation in the electronics or mechanical damage from impact or corrosion.”
Flowmeter calibration methodology
Titan Enterprises use piston provers for flowmeter calibration; our primary rigs are rated from 0.002–40 L/min and 0.05–160 L/min. With the new rig, our low-end flow calibration can be reduced to 0.05 mL/min. The calibrators use a piston within a smooth bore tube to act as a moving barrier between the pressurising gas and the displaced test fluid.
All Titan flow calibrations are traceable to national standards and have real-time temperature compensation to accommodate changes in the fluid properties. Our piston prover systems are calibrated annually against certified weigh scales and are pneumatically or hydraulically driven to ensure a constant flow rate.
Like the main flow rigs, the volumetric throughput for Titan’s new calibration rig is traceable to national standards via a water draw test. Flows as low as 0.05 mL/min may be calibrated using this rig, which has a repeatability value of ±0.02% and operates at an uncertainty of 0.03%.
Jeremy concludes: “Titan will also be increasing its production staffing levels to meet increasing demand, optimise our production rates and functionality that the new rig will give us.”
