Harmonic analysis-based diagnostics of noflow pulsation in vortex and swirl flowmeter

The vortex/swirl flowmeters are meant to measure the flowrate based on the measurement of the flow frequency. Due to the frequency-dependent computation of the flowrate, noflow pulsation causes a false positive, i.e., it indicates certain amount of flowrate when actually there is no flow. This happens when for example, the valves of the flow pipe are closed causing no flow, but some pumps are working against the closed valves to cause some pulsating pressure waves within the closed valves. The flowmeter mistakenly recognizes this as a flow and picks up the wrong frequency. This paper focuses on the diagnostic function of this particular noflow pulsation problem. Experiments, diagnostic algorithm and application results utilizing the presence of harmonics are reported in this paper.