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Fourth Meeting of FRWG to be held on June 20, 2019

The Fourth Meeting of the Flow Recalibration Working Group (FRWG) will be at the CEESI North American Custody Transfer Conference in Austin, Texas on June 20, 2019. This meeting will be held at the conclusion of the North American Custody Transfer Measurement Conference (NACTMC 2019), organized by Colorado Engineering Experiment Station Inc. (CEESI). The conference will be held from June 18 - 20, 2019, at the following location:

 

Hyatt Regency Austin

208 Barton Springs Road

Austin, TX 78704

512-477-1234

For more details on the conference, go to www.ceesi.com.  You can make hotel reservations through the CEESI website.

The conference is scheduled to conclude at noon on June 20, 2019. The FRWG meeting will take place in the main conference hall from 12:30 - 2:00 pm. Some people may have to leave early due to flight schedules, so we would like to get started soon after the conclusion of the conference; hence the 12:30 pm starting time.

An agenda will be sent to FRWG members. We plan to discuss the results of our end-user survey on flowmeter recalibration, and also the status of our whitepapers on flowmeter recalibration frequency, among other topics.   

Flow Research has prepared a summary of the results of the 25 questionnaire responses we have received, complete with comments and charts. This survey shows some very interesting results about the reasons why people decide to recalibrate their flowmeters, what percent send them to an outside flowlab, and how often they recalibrate. It also shows that some people choose self-verification or onsite calibration as an alternative. We will discuss these results.

We will also discuss the structure of our proposed whitepaper on flowmeter calibration. If you are planning to attend, please think about the structure and the topics that need to be addressed.

Can You Help in this Effort?

If you are an end-user or a manufacturer involved in calibration or recalibration of flowmeters, you can help us by taking the survey below. Simply click on the WORD or PDF version of our end-user survey and fill it out. Please send the results to Jesse Yoder at jesse@flowresearch.com. Your input will make a difference!

FRWG is Conducting a Flowmeter Recalibration Survey: Your Input is Needed!

Please take our flowmeter recalibration survey!  FRWG is conducting a survey of decision-makers who need to determine when to have their flowmeters recalibrated.  We need your input!  Our goal is to determine criteria to determine when flowmeters of different types need to be recalibrated.  We will then work to have these criteria adopted as an industry standard.  

Our first step is to find out what people are doing now, including how often and why they have their flowmeters recalibrated.  Our scope is worldwide, as we believe that similar considerations apply regardless of region.  So far as we know, this is the first attempt by any group to establish such a standard.

You can participate by filling out the following survey:  If you do, we will send you more information on our ongoing activities, and on how you can become more involved.  For your convenience, we have posted both a WORD and a PDF version of the survey.

Flowmeter Recalibration Survey (WORD Version)

Flowmeter Recalibration Survey (PDF Version)

Please return your completed survey to jesse@flowresearch.com, or to the address on the back of the survey form.  Thank you for your participation!

See below for a list of FRWG members and a history of the organization, including how and why it was formed.

Second Meeting of FRWG held on June 21, 2017

We held our second meeting of the Flow Recalibration Working Group (FRWG) at the CEESI North American Custody Transfer Conference in San Antonio, Texas that was held from June 19-21, 2017. We met on June 21 at the conclusion of the conference. 

The main focus of this meeting was the end-user survey that we decided to conduct at our initial meeting.  Flow Research has created a draft of the end-user survey that has been circulated to working group members At this meeting we agreed to finalize the end-user survey, and then begin to administer it.  Members agreed to provide the names of 5-10 end-users who could potentially complete the survey.

The subject of providing funding for our efforts was discussed, but we agreed to wait until completing the end-user survey to pursue this idea.

We aim to get the end-user survey underway at the beginning of 2018.  Flow Research will be circulating the draft survey towards the end of 2017 so that we can begin the survey early in 2018.  Our hope is to have some solid results by the time of our third meeting at the CEESI Custody Transfer conference in June 2018.

In the meantime, we have had some new members join our working group.  The list of FRWG members appears below.  I would especially like to welcome Pankaj Gupta (Gail), Tom Ballard (Circor), Tom Stonehouse (Baker Hughes-GE), and Aguko Willis (Kenya Bureau of Standards). Our Working Group has a truly international reach.

Third Meeting of FRWG held on June 14, 2018

On June 14, 2018, the Flow Recalibration Working Group (FRWG) held its third meeting.  The Working Group has been meeting for the past several years at the CEESI Custody Transfer Conference, held annually in June.

The group began by reviewing the activities of the past year.  In our 2017 meeting, we had agreed to finalize the enduser questionnaire that was circulated to members prior to the 2017 meeting.  Flow Research received comments on this survey during the second half of 2017.  On February 9, 2018, and again on February 24, Flow Research sent out a reminder to FRWG members to review the questionnaire prior to its being sent out.  We received some additional comments after these reminders.  Finally, on March 18, 2018, an email was sent to FRWG members announcing that the user survey questionnaire was complete.

Flow Research conducted the end-user survey on behalf of the FRWG.  Several thousand surveys were emailed out, and several hundred hardcopy versions. By the time of our third meeting, we had relatively few completed questionnaires. We discussed those results at the meeting. However, as a result of continued efforts in reaching out to end-users, by September we had substantially more returned and completed questionnaires. 

The FRWG agreed to use the completed questionnaires as data to help create whitepapers on recalibration of the main types of flowmeters.  We decided to begin with ultrasonic, then go to Coriolis and turbine. Our goal is to have some whitepapers in draft form to discuss at the fourth FRWG meeting on June 20, 2019.


Flow Recalibration Working Group (FRWG)

The purpose of this group is to arrive at a group of criteria that end-users can employ to determine if their flowmeters need to be recalibrated.  This does not necessarily equate to a specific time interval.  Instead, the goal is to have some tests, programs, or criteria that can be run to determine when a flowmeter needs to be recalibrated. 

The idea for this group came out of a series of in-person interviews Flow Research did with end-users of flowmeters in the Middle East in 2009.  We interviewed 15 companies from Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE about their use of flowmeters.  Many of them expressed frustration that there was no generally agreed upon interval when their ultrasonic flowmeters need to be recalibrated.  There was also the fact that at that time there was no recalibration facility in the Middle East .  These people asked us if we could help them arrive at a standard.  I (Jesse Yoder) said that I would do what I could.

Since that time I have spoken to the AGA, which seems to have no interest in taking on this subject.  One positive development is that Emerson Process has built a flow calibration facility in Abu Dhabi, but it is currently limited to four inch liquid recalibrations.  Some countries have instituted their own rules about calibration frequency, but these periods vary and seem to differ on a country by country basis.

The series of six studies that Flow Research did in 2012 on gas flow measurement grew out of the Middle East interviews. Since then we have completed a new edition of this series. Flow Research has also completed a study of flow calibration facilities.  We have identified 147 such facilities worldwide, and have published two studies that describe these facilities and their capabilities.  One study is on liquid recalibration and one is on recalibration of gas flowmeters.  You can find a description of these studies at www.flowcalibration.org.

This Working Group is strictly a volunteer effort, and so far has no official sanction.  However, our hope is that if we do succeed in coming up with a usable set of recalibration guidelines, we can approach some of the organizations like AGA and API for approval of the guidelines.  Short of this, we can publish our report and circulate it among interested manufacturers and end-users.  Since no one has to our knowledge attempted this before, we think the results will be met with quite a lot of interest.

So far, the following people have volunteered to be on this committee:

Dr. Jesse Yoder (Flow Research) (jesse@flowresearch.com) (Founder)

Tom Ballard (Circor International) (thomas.ballard@circor.com)

Peter Brand (Avans Hogeschool Tilburg) (peter@sparckxconsulting.com)

Dr. Gregor Brown (Cameron) (gbrown18@slb.cameron.com)

Bob Carrell (Hoffer Flow Controls) (bcarrell@hofferflow.com)

Joel Clancy (CEESI) (jclancy@ceesi.com)

Terry Cousins (CEESI Measurement Solutions) (tcousins@ceesims.com)

Pankaj Gupta (GAIL India Limited) (pk_gupta@gail.co.in)

Thomas Boy Jacobsen (FORCE Technology) (tyj@force.dk)

Dr. Aaron Johnson (NIST) (aaron.johnson@nist.gov)

Dr. Tom Kegel (CEESI) (tkegel@ceesi.com)

Tom Kemme (Magnetrol) (tkemme@magnetrol.com)

Dick Laan (Krohne Altometer) (d.laan@krohne.com)  

John Lansing (Lansing Measurement Services LLC) (sonicjohn@earthlink.net)

Dr. Phil Mark (TUV SUD Ltd.) (phil.mark@tuv-nel.co.uk)

Tom O’Banion (Micro Motion) (tom.obanion@emerson.com)

Didier Pabois (Faure Herman, Groupe IDEX) (dpabois@idexcorp.com)

Dean Standiford (Emerson Process Management) (dean.standiford@emerson.com)

Jesus J. Aguilera Mena (Endress+Hauser Flowtec AG) (jesus-jaime.aguilera-mena@flowtec.endress.com)

Steve Stewart (Oil & Gas Process Solutions) (Steve.stewart@flowmd.com)  

Tom Stonehouse (Baker Hughes, a GE Compny) (thomas.stonehouse@bhge.com)

Remco van den Berg (VSL b.v.) (RvdBerg@vsl.nl)

Eric van Doorn (ODS Metering Systems BV) (Eric.vandoorn@kloeckner.com)

Aguko Willis (Kenya Bureau of Standards) (agukow@kebs.org

The first task of the committee is to formulate criteria for determining when an inline multipath ultrasonic custody transfer needs to be recalibrated.  This included running a software program, using a check meter, running diagnostics, doing dry calibration, or any other method that may be effective.  We then plan to address other types of ultrasonic flowmeters, as well as other flowmeter types such as turbine, differential pressure with different primary elements, vortex, magnetic, and thermal. 

Jesse Yoder
President, Flow Research


Articles About Calibration Topics


Also see:

www.FlowCalibration.org


 

 

 

 
 
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