Increasing High-Pressure Flow Measurement Calibration Capacity

by | Jul 24, 2015 | Measurement Instrumentation

Jim Cahill

Jim Cahill

Chief Blogger, Social Marketing Leader

FORCE Technology high-pressure gas meter calibration facility

FORCE Technology high-pressure gas meter calibration facility

This May, the world’s largest closed loop for high-pressure calibration of gas meters opened at Force Technology in Vejen, Denmark. The facility’s purpose is to calibrate all types of gas meters that measure or settle gas types (natural gas), including:

  • Turbine meters
  • Swirl meters
  • Ultrasound meters
  • V-cone and M-cone meters
  • Vortex meters
  • Coriolis meters
  • Thermal mass flow meters
  • Mass flow controllers


Emerson’s Jacob Freeke was invited to the grand opening to present on the global development and future of natural gas measurement. He shared some trends about the growing percentage of natural gas in the total global energy supply. It is now around 23% and growing at a compound annual rate of approximately 2.5%.

Transferring the custody of natural gas between gas producers and distributors in the supply chain requires reliable and accurate measurement. As such, the demand for high-pressure natural gas calibration continues to grow. This calibration facility is part of the expanding global capacity to meet these needs.

Technologies for measuring flow have advanced from orifice fittings and differential pressure measurement in the early 1900s to technologies such as ultrasonic flow measurement introduced around 1990. This calibration facility is designed to meet the needs for full flow ranges, capacity to avoid long lead times, quality per standards such as ISO 17025, stable, smooth and well-developed flow profiles, indoor to avoid weather-related effects and traceability to European Harmonized reference.

Jacob noted other important calibration needs including the ability to handle a wide range of flow measurement technologies, calibration flexibility for standalone meters to skids and metering runs including flow conditioners and upstream and downstream piping. In addition, inputs from the meter need to support analog and digital signals. A final need is for the calibration facility to have a minimum of 2 meters in parallel, up to a maximum of four—two dual meters in series.

Force Technology becomes the fourth member of the European Harmonized Reference Value—EuReGa.

EuReGa - European Reference for Gasmetering

EuReGaEuropean Reference for Gasmetering

Jacob shared some future trends including calibrating full metering packages to minimize installation effects. Also, advanced diagnostics in ultrasonic meters may allow for the extension of re-verification intervals. He also noted that atmospheric air calibration many replace high-pressure natural gas calibration over time. Finally, more in-field validation with tracers may be performed.

These advancements and increased calibration capacity help to assure that the flow meters used in custody transfer and fiscal measurement applications will meet the accuracy and reliability requirements.

You can connect and interact with other flow measurement experts in the Flow group of the Emerson Exchange 365 community.

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