Numerical simulation of ultrasonic flowmeters

摘要

A method is presented for numerical simulation of time-of-flight ultrasonic flowmeters, appropriate to the case where the ultrasound wavelength is small relative to the dimensions of the measuring tube. The procedure, based on ray tracing, is applicable to geometries with nonlinear focusing or defocusing elements and to situations where the flow velocity is not negligible compared with the velocity of sound. Starting points and directions of the ultrasonic rays from the surface of the transmitting transducer are selected randomly by a Monte Carlo statistical technique, which is shown to be much more economical in computer time and storage than deterministic procedures for comparable accuracy. Application of the simulation in the design process for an ultrasonic gasmeter is given as an example. Simulation of transducers has been reported in several previous publications and is not included in the present work. [References: 18]