UFM 3030 for Chinese fuel pipelinesKROHNE instruments control crude and refined oil products
For its Western Pipeline Project, China Petroleum Material and Equipment Corporation (CPMEC) ordered a total of 49 UFM 3030 inline ultrasonic flowmeters in a diameter range of 10'' to 32''. 23 instruments will be used in an 1840 km long pipeline that transports refined oil products from Wulumuqi to LanZhou. 26 instruments will be used in a 1550 km long pipeline that transports crude oil from Shanshan to LanZhou. KROHNE was awarded with the order as it could bid a high quality product for a competitive price.
As CPMEC specifications called for weld-in flowmeters, a series of flangeless UFM 3030 had to be designed. Doing so required some more work then just modifying the design of the flowmeter; the pressure test equipment (each UFM is standard pressure tested at 150% of the nominal design pressure) and the calibration tower needed modifications to be able to handle flangeless flowmeters.
A special challenge was due to the pipe specifications that standardizes the diameter at each end of six meter long pipes only. This implies KROHNE could not use material that was cut from the middle of the pipe. To ensure that the instruments were within diameter tolerance all flowmeters were produced from rolled and welded sheet steel material. In addition, the flowmeters have a slightly increased wall thickness to compensate for the loss in tube strength that occurs by drilling the holes for the acoustic sensors.
Information: KROHNE Messtechnik GmbH & Co. KG, Thomas Zimmerling,
E-Mail: TZimmerling@krohne.de
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