eHANDBOOK

Part I

Flow
Measurement
 www.ControlGlobal.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sizing and checking equal-percent control valves 4

How water/wastewater operations are transforming with process instrumentation 8

3 experts’ advice on compressor surge protection 12

Biggest Valve Sizing Mistake 16

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eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 2

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Sizing and checking equal-
percent control valves
Why key data is needed to firm up performance answers
Béla Lipták
Q:
The control valve’s actual
operating conditions are
compared with the design
values. It’s a 10-year-old equal-percent
control valve. Installation and testing data
is included in the accompanying graphics.
The control valve outlet piping is around
2.0 m vertically upward, connecting to the
nozzle entering the distillation column.
The check valve is functioning and the
gate valve is fully open. There’s also no
pipe clogging issue. As the operating
flow rate is only 60% of the control valve
maximum flow rate, it’s expected that the
actual control valve percentage opening
will be lower than the reading from DCS.
As there’s no high dP expected at the
control valve outlet piping, where does
the excess dP go? Could there be a high
chance that the control valve’s design or
www.ControlGlobal.com
actual characteristics are wrong? Based
on the current actual operating scenarios,
does this mean the control valve will no
longer be controllable in the future when
the plant is operated at 70% of maximum
control valve flow rate, i.e., the expected
control valve could be 100% open? I sus-
pect that the control valve might not be
correct, and I have no clue what went
wrong. Nevertheless, it seems that it
could not be that all four control valves,
which had been there for 10 years, are
operating and not meeting the original
valve design specifications:
• A linear inherent curve will in general
resemble a quick opening character-
istic, and
• An equal percentage curve will in general
resemble a linear curve.
• Are these valid in real process applications?
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 4

Seer Ping
BTech, Chemical Engineering
tengseerping@gmail.com
A1: This long question illustrates how not
to ask a question because it says a lot, but
leaves out the key data. It involves the
operation of an equal percentage (= %) feed
flow control valve on a vacuum distillation
column which is operating at -0.98 kg/
cm2g vacuum (Figure 1).
Also tabulated are the conditions the valve
was sized for 10 years ago, including the
actual flow and inlet pressure that exists
today (Figure 2). The questions are: can this
= % valve handle a 10% increase in flow and
why did the inlet pressure increase three-
fold over the years?
FIGURE 1: Installation of control valve FV001 (1in. = % value, Cv = 8.84)
www.ControlGlobal.com
Question 1: Let me start with a brief
description of the nature of = % valves. In
my experience = % valves are the wrong
selection flow control application. I use =
% valves only for heat transfer control and
use linear valves for regular flow control
and quick opening for square root type
flow control.
With an = % valve, as the lift rises, each
percentage of lift results in a different
amount of flow increase. This increase
amounts to a fixed percentage of the flow
at that point. This increase is 3% in your
case. Therefore, if this percentage also
applies at 50% flow, lift is about 80%. In
other words, if today you operate at 50%
of maximum flow, then your lift today
should be about 80% and you would
double the flow when the lift is 100%.
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 5

FIGURE 2: The expected performance under conditions in the original specifications
Naturally, this is only true, if ΔP is con-
stant. At the time of sizing, ΔP was 1.43 kg/
cm2g, and you didn’t state its value today.
Therefore, if over the years ΔP remained
constant, the = % valve would be OK when
the flow increases by only 10% (from 50%
to 55%). On the other hand, if the valve ΔP
changed over the years, the valve char-
acteristics also changed. I don’t know if it
did or not because in the long list of that
data, you didn’t provide this key informa-
tion. When the valve is installed in piping,
the valve characteristic is no longer inde-
pendent because it will also be affected
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by the frictional resistance of the rest of
the system. In such cases (which is yours),
if your pump is constant speed, the valve
characteristics can be distorted towards
linear or even quick opening. If your pump
is variable speed, the distortion will be less.
Regarding the somewhat complicated cal-
culation of the distortion coefficient, refer
to Chapter 6.7 in my handbook.
Therefore, the answer to your first question
is that, if the valve ΔP didn’t change over
the years, it can operate at a 10% increase
in load.
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 6

Question 2: The three-fold rise in pres-
sure at the valve inlet (Pi) is strange, but
because you didn’t give the present outlet
pressure (Po), I don’t know if the valve
characteristics changed or not. What I do
know is that the system drop will rise if any
of the following three condition exist:
1. If the fluid viscosity increased (and
therefore the Reynolds number was
reduced), the flow profile could have
shifted from turbulent towards laminar.
2. If material built up on the inside sur-
faces of the system and this restriction
reduced the area open to flow, the
resulting resistance could also have
increased the inlet pressure (Pi).
3. Pi could have also risen if the fluid
temperature (T) increased above the
boiling point (Tb) of the fluid, because
when liquid is turned into vapor by
flashing, the volume can increase
hundred-fold.
So, the conclusion is you can provide a lot
of text and data, but if it doesn’t contain the
key information (in this case outlet pressure
and boiling temperature), then you can’t
get a firm answer.
www.ControlGlobal.com
Béla Lipták
liptakbela@aol.com
A2: On Aug. 9, 2003, I checked the deriva-
tion given by Smith and Corripio, Automatic
Process Control, pp. 147-154, and found it to
be correct. On one occasion, a field test with
measurements was done by an independent
instrument engineer on an online control
valve, and it proved that the information in
the mentioned text was valid. The information
was then shared with my former company.
Yes, a linear valve will approach
quick-opening characteristics and an equal
percentage curve will in general resemble a
linear curve, as the lift increases. However,
a control valve with a strong, stiff, well-built
and well-packaged actuator can produce
an observed flow characteristic matching
exactly with the designed flow character-
istic of the engineered control valve. The
latter information wasn’t captured or men-
tioned in the text by Smith and Corripio.
Gerald Liu,
Consultant, Voting Member, ISA 75
gerald.liu@shaw.ca
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 7

How water/wastewater
operations are transforming
with process instrumentation
Control caught up with Nick Hanson, national industry marketing manager
for the water/wastewater industry at Endress+Hauser in the United States.
Endress+Hauser
W
ith all the attention being
given to the climate change
aspects of sustainabil-
ity, it’s sometimes easy to overlook the
growing importance of sustainability
when it comes to conserving the world’s
increasingly constrained supplies of fresh
water. Indeed, industry is among the larg-
est consumer of fresh water, and many
global manufacturers have identified
water scarcity as a significant risk factor
to continuing operations. To answer the
challenge, operators of both municipal
and industrial water and wastewater treat-
ments systems are in the midst of their
own transformations—from often vulner-
able, run-to-fail operations to smarter,
optimized systems driven by the effective
integration and analysis of data from the
field on up.
www.ControlGlobal.com
To discuss this ongoing transformation of
our water/wastewater infrastructure, Con-
trol caught up with Nick Hanson, national
industry marketing manager for the water/
wastewater industry at Endress+Hauser in
the United States.
Q: As a leader in the process instrumen-
tation marketplace, what opportunities
is Endress+Hauser seeing in the water/
wastewater industry?
A: While there’s certainly growth hap-
pening, change in the water/wastewater
industry is evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Among the largest opportunities right now
is a concerted shift from large, centralized
water treatment operations to more mod-
ular, resilient approaches. That way, the
community is less susceptible to a flood
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 8

or other natural disaster compromising
the water supply to thousands upon thou-
sands of residents. And, while modular
approaches have really taken off, central-
ized facilities are being updated as well.
Q: Beyond measuring and controlling flow
rates and tank levels, the use of analytical
instrumentation to verify water quality is
an important function of water/wastewater
instrumentation that seems to be constantly
evolving. Are more analytical techniques
moving online (vs. sampling) and are
there additional analytical methods being
required by new regulations?
A: There’s a saying that you can’t control
what you don’t measure, which I think
really hits home. Not just because it makes
sense, but because it refocuses the conver-
sation on the importance of data accuracy
and availability. So, yes, more liquid anal-
ysis measurements are going online. As
more regional and national regulations get
handed out, our customers need those
measurements to be timely and accurate,
and they want to “own” that measurement
directly, rather than outsourcing to a third-
party lab. Online measurement not only
improves reporting accuracy and consis-
tency, but also lets operators react more
quickly to any upsets in the processes and
make corrective adjustments on the fly.
Making sure that our customers have the
best instrumentation and the best data pos-
sible goes a long way.
www.ControlGlobal.com
Q: As a response to the COVID pandemic, it
seems like all industry sectors are focused
on improving the remote accessibility of
data and systems. Has it been any different
for the water/wastewater sector?
A: I think the water/wastewater sector has
been equally impacted by the pandemic. It’s
really changed the landscape of our work-
force. Organizations were forced to make do
with minimal onsite staff in order to minimize
contact among employees. More automation,
better data and the ability to troubleshoot
remotely have been common themes. When
the individual with the necessary expertise
can’t be onsite or travel to a remote lift sta-
tion, the ability to remotely troubleshoot and
diagnose problems is needed.
The move to more modular water/waste-
water treatment system designs already
had us traveling this path; the pandemic just
accelerated that transformation.
Q: How is Endress+Hauser making it easier
for its water/wastewater customers to
access, understand and make better deci-
sions based on the data in its instruments?
A: Diagnostic information from field-level
devices has been there a long time, but it
has often gone unutilized. From a practical
perspective, that data had to be piped up
through the local control system, and that
put a heavy burden on the programma-
ble logical controller (PLC) or distributed
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 9

control system (DCS). And, once that data
made it up through the control system, you
needed a proper historian to store it, plus
the application to turn that raw data into
useful information.
More recently, however, a combination
of diagnostic tools and communications
capability such as those embodied in
Endress+Hauser’s Heartbeat Technology
began to liberate that data and put it to good
use. With our Netilion IIoT ecosystem, for
example, we bring all that secondary instru-
mentation data directly into our system,
where we crunch all those diagnostics in real
time, producing predictive maintenance alerts
and real-time alarms if a problem is detected.
It can provide a global view of all devices at
a site or plant level. Interest in Netilion has
really taken off; the pandemic really opened
everyone’s eyes to the possibilities of lever-
aging a remote, secondary environment to
complement our current systems.
Q: Is Netilion purely cloud-based, or can it
be implemented as a local solution as well?
A: We have customers using Netilion both
ways. Data from our instruments and
from those of other manufacturers can be
extracted from field-level networks, and
sent to the cloud via a secure cellular gate-
way in a local switch, or routed to a local
server for on-premises analysis. In both sce-
narios, we adhere to all the latest standards
related to cybersecurity.
www.ControlGlobal.com
Q: What other areas of sustainability
improvement are available to industrial
users of water, and how is Endress+Hauser
driving innovation in this area?
A: The topics of water, wastewater and
sustainability go hand in hand. For local
producers of water, having an efficient,
optimized process impacts sustainability
as well their bottom line. On the flip side,
industrial consumers of water need to be
mindful of the source of their water. Many
Western States are in the midst of historic
droughts, with multiple reservoirs and
bodies of water at historically low levels.
In other parts of the country, flooding has
taken out more than one municipal treat-
ment facility. And, while that’s technically
a surplus of water, such events disrupt the
whole infrastructure of clean drinking water
production. So, on the topic of sustainabil-
ity, not only do we have to be mindful of
our own businesses, we also need to be
mindful of the environment.
At Endress+Hauser, we impact that equation
through reliable and accurate measurements.
We provide the information that allows
users and OEMs to make their processes as
efficient as possible. When processes don’t
shut down unexpectedly and when opera-
tors can quickly respond to upsets, they tend
to be more efficient, too. We’re not directly
responsible for producing large quantities of
water in nature, but we like to say that we’re
pretty good at conserving them.
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 10
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3 experts’ advice on
compressor surge protection
By Béla Lipták
Q:
Venturi flowmeters are good
for volumetric flow rate
measurement. If we need
mass flow rate, we generally multiply the
volumetric reading by density. But when
density changes as a function of volu-
metric flow rate (pressure drop across
the Venturi), the measurement becomes
more complicated.
Is there a way to use a Venturi to measure
mass instead of volumetric flow? Also, would
variation in the molecular weight of the gas
play into compressor surge calculations?
Kindly help me out.
Abhishek
abhisharma3143@yahoo.com
www.ControlGlobal.com
A1: Most compressors use Venturi meters
on the discharge because they have a low
sustained pressure loss and are accurate.
Coriolis meters aren’t used because when
a compressor approaches surge conditions
it’s rendered inaccurate; it reads high when
vibrations increase.
For many compressor applications, gas
purity or gas density is measured separately
on the inlet, and this value is updated (after
validation) to the anti-surge controls.
Venturi differential pressure, discharge
pressure, discharge temperature and den-
sity inputs are brought into a PLC or other
fast controller to calculate the volumetric
flow, polytropic head, surge line and output
to an anti-surge valve.
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 12
 www.ControlGlobal.com

FIGURE 01: The key to effective surge protection is high-speed, linear, double-bypass and
direct-acting valves (1- to 3-second response) and a flow controller that keep the flow within
maximum and minimum limits. Violent surge can cause oscillation, flow seat damage and even
flow reversal.

If the gas composition is changing, there isn’t With regards to the compressibility factor
any easy way to get around the requirement (z), it includes calculators that can be used
for a gas density or composition measurement. to estimate mass flow.

Ralph J. McCloskey Simon Pate

Chief Engineer – Process Control Center
of Excellence
Honeywell Process Solutions
ralph.mccloskey@honeywell.com
A2: I’d suggest using a reference from the
American Gas Association (AGA) for flow
calculations of natural gas via orifice plates.
It’s in AGA Report No. 3, Part 2: Orifice
Metering of Natural Gas and Other Related
Hydrocarbon Fluids - Concentric, Square-
edged Orifice Meters, Specifications and
Installation Requirements.
simon.pate@carrier.com
A3: While we’re on the topic of compressor
surge control, it’s worth noting the emerg-
ing importance of high-pressure hydrogen.
Future energy projections agree that in the
long term mankind will convert its energy
economy to solar-hydrogen and that the
first step in this conversion process will be a
switch from coal to natural gas (NG). Actu-
ally, some lobbyists are already (falsely)
calling natural gas a “temporary green” fuel.
But no matter which side of the climate

eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 13


change debate one might be on, all can
agree we’re leaving the fossil energy age
and entering the a higher-pressure, hydro-
gen-based energy economy of the future.
To successfully complete this conversion,
we must be able to seal the emptying wells
and provide all compressors with optimized
surge controls.
Our NG compressor-based distribution
networks consist of thousands of piping
systems up to 42-in in diameter and their
associated controls, often unprotected from
cyber-terrorism. While these systems require
sophisticated controls, they’ve been in oper-
ation for decades, and are well proven and
understood. (In the fourth edition of my
industrial controls handbook, I devoted a full
chapter to a detailed description of these
control algorithms.) Such compressor sys-
tems already operate at fairly high pressures
www.ControlGlobal.com
(from 250 psig to 1,500 psig for NG). And
with a transition to hydrogen, supply pres-
sures in our interstate and international
pipelines will be raised to 10,000 psig.
Hydrogen centrifugal compressors must
operate at top speeds that are three
times faster than natural gas compressors
to achieve the same compression ratio
because of the low molecular weight of
hydrogen. So, coming back to your basic
question, I would stick with using the Ven-
turi on the suction side of the compressor,
and combine that reading with a separate
densitometer reading. I don’t use Coriolis in
such applications because they depend on
an induced oscillation and therefore tend to
read high under vibrating conditions.
Béla Lipták
Liptakbela@aol.com
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 14
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Biggest Valve Sizing Mistake
The intentions that lead to this mistake may be good but the results are
insidiously bad.
Greg McMillan
T
here is a common mistake made in
the sizing of most control valves. The
intentions that lead to this mistake
may be good but the results are insidiously
bad. While you would think that the prolif-
eration of improvements in technology and
communications would lead to better aware-
ness, the problem appears to getting worse
because of pervasive persistent miscon-
ceptions fostered by missing fields on valve
specification forms.
Presently, valve specification forms have
fields for maximum flow, available pres-
sure drop and leakage. Most people filling
out the form would think that a valve
that can easily handle a greater flow with
a lower pressure drop and less leakage
would be better. This leads often to rotary
valves with tight shutoff seals. These
www.ControlGlobal.com
valves are cheaper than sliding stem
valves and the actuators often included
are designed for a rotary stem and can
handle greater shutoff pressures. The
resulting ball and butterfly valves have
piston actuators designed more for on-off
action. These valves are usually already
in the piping specification extensively for
automated sequential actions and shut-
down. While rangeability may not be on
the valve specification, it is thought to
be extraordinarily great for these valves
due to a prevalent definition of range-
ability being a maximum flow divided by
a minimum flow whose Cv is within the
specified inherent flow characteristic.
Gosh, you don’t even need to be con-
cerned with piping reducers. What seals
the deal is the very attractive price. Not
understood is that these on-off valves
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 16

posing as throttling valves are a disas-
ter. A low valve pressure drop to system
pressure drop ratio causes distortion of
the installed flow characteristic making
the characteristic much more nonlinear.
The backlash of the actuator linkages and
the keylock actuator shaft to stem to ball
or disk connections is excessive, the stic-
tion from the ball or disk seal and shaft
packing is terrible, and the resolution of
the piston actuator poor. The result is limit
cycles and a real rangeability that is lousy
to the point of being a disaster for any
loop where control better than within 5%
of setpoint is desired. Often the oscilla-
tions are blamed on other sources due to
lack of understanding. The real rangeabil-
ity is drastically reduced to perhaps 10%
of the stated rangeability due to distortion
of the nonlinear installed flow character-
istic and the backlash and stiction that
gets worse near the closed position. Oper-
ating valve positions are much less than
expected due to conservative factors
built into pump sizing and maximum flow
specified. Most valve suppliers will not
do response testing and if requested, the
testing will not be done below 10% valve
position because of the deterioration in
response. The user is setup for a terrible
scenario of limit cycling.
So what can we do? Please, add in a
backlash and resolution (e.g., 0.5%) and
response time (e.g., 2 sec) and installed
www.ControlGlobal.com
flow characteristic valve gain (e.g., 0.5
to 2.0 % flow per % signal) requirement
at 10%, 50% and 90% positions for step
changes of 0.25%, 0.5%, 1%, and 2%
for all valves plus 50% step change for
surge valves and gas pressure valves. To
achieve these specification requirements,
use splined shaft connections, integrally
cast stem and ball or disk, v-notch balls
and contoured disks, and low friction
seals for rotary valves and a valve pres-
sure drop that is at least 25% of the
system pressure drop for maximum flow,
low friction packing (e.g., ultra low fric-
tion (ULF) packing), sensitive diaphragm
actuators (now available for much higher
actuator pressures) and digital position-
ers tuned with maximum gain and no
integral action for all valves. The installed
flow characteristic should be plotted with
the help of process and piping engineers
for the worst case. When asked why the
valve cost is higher, tell them the cheaper
valve will cause sloppy control putting
the plant safety seriously at risk.
Remember bigger is not better and cheaper
is not really cheaper in the long run.
For much more than you have ever wanted
on valve response checkout the Control
article “How to specify valves and position-
ers that don’t compromise control” and the
associated white paper “Valve Response -
Truth or Consequences”.
eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 17

For much more on valve specification see the
ISA Mentor Program Q&A post “Basic Guide-
lines for Control Valve Selection and Sizing”
If you want more information on opportuni-
ties to learn what is really important, please
join the ISA Mentor Program and ask the
questions whose answers can be shared via
Mentor Q&A Posts.
www.ControlGlobal.com
You can also get a comprehensive
resource focused on what you really
need to know for a successful automaton
project including nearly a thousand best
practices in the 98% new 2019 Process/
Industrial Instruments and Controls Hand-
book Sixth Edition capturing the expertise
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eHANDBOOK: Flow Measurement, Part I 18