Flow Research Establishes Flow Recalibration Working Group (FRWG)

Flow Research has established a new working group called the Flow Recalibration Working Group (FRWG).  The purpose of this group is to arrive at a group of criteria that end-users can employ to determine if their flowmeters need to be recalibrated.  This does not necessarily equate to a specific time interval.  Instead, the goal is to have some tests, programs, or criteria that can be run to determine when a flowmeter needs to be recalibrated.

The idea for this group came out of a series of in-person interviews I did with end-users of flowmeters in the Middle East in 2009.  I interviewed 15 companies from Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE about their use of flowmeters.  Many of them expressed frustration that there was no generally agreed upon interval when their ultrasonic flowmeters need to be recalibrated.  There was also the fact that at that time there was no recalibration facility in the Middle East.  These people asked me if I could help them arrive at a standard.  I said that I would do what I could.

Since that time I have spoken to the AGA, which seems to have no interest in taking on this subject.  One positive development is that Emerson Process has built a flow calibration facility in Abu Dhabi, but it is currently limited to four inch liquid recalibrations.  Some countries have instituted their own rules about calibration frequency, but these periods vary and seem to differ on a country by country basis.

The series of six studies that Flow Research did in 2012 on gas flow measurement grew out of the Middle East interviews. We are now researching a new edition of this series. Currently, Flow Research is conducting a worldwide study of the calibration facilities for liquid and gas recalibration.  So far we have identified 125 such facilities.  We have completed a questionnaire that we plan to send to them.  The study will include a description of the capabilities of the various facilities worldwide.  We also plan to cover flowmeter manufacturers that recalibrate flowmeters, and also mobile calibration facilities.  We are doing separate studies on liquid and gas recalibration.  I think that these studies should be a valuable database of information for our committee work.  You can find a description of these studies at www.flowcalibration.org.

This committee is strictly a volunteer effort, and so far has no official sanction.  However, my hope is that if we do succeed in coming up with a usable set of recalibration guidelines, we can approach some of the organizations like AGA and API for approval of the guidelines.  Short of this, we can publish our report and circulate it among interested manufacturers and end-users.  Since no one has to my knowledge attempted this before, I think the results will be met with quite a lot of interest.

For more information, go to www.frwg.org.

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