Numerical investigation of the large over-reading of Venturi flow rate in ARE of nuclear power plant

Venturi meter is frequently used in feed water flow control system in a nuclear power plant. Its accurate measurement plays a vital role in the safe operation of the plant. This paper firstly investigates the influence of the length of each section of pipeline, the throat inner diameter of Venturi and the flow characteristics in a single-phase flow on the accuracy of Venturi measurement by numerical calculation. Then the flow and the accuracy are discussed in a multi-phase flow. Numerical results show that the geometrical parameters and the characteristics of complex turbulent flow in the single-phase flow have little impact on the accuracy of Venturi flow rate measurement. In the multi-phase flow, the calculated flow rate of Venturi deviated from the actual flow rate and this deviation value is closely related to the amount of steam in the pipeline and increases sharply with the increase of the amount of steam. The over-reading of Venturi flow rate is present.