... for Clamp-On Flow Measurement of Bitumen at an Oil Sand FacilityIn a Canadian oil sand surface mine, the recovered oil is refined directly on the site. One of the many processing steps is the thermal cracking. Optimally feeding the upgraded bitumen into the thermal cracker requires accurate monitoring and regulation of product input, which can be accomplished only by reliable flow measurement. Some flow meters are also used for detection of line clogging threat. Clogged lines can easily cause a shutdown of the entire facility, leading to enormous downtime costs. In the past such measurements were done with differential pressure methods or vortex shedding meters. Like all inline measuring instruments, these were subject to wear and tear and demanded daily maintenance.Non-intrusive flow measurement proved to be a significantly better solution. A test measurement, using the WaveInjector®together with a portable transmitter on a 6" pipe carrying hot VAC tower residue demonstrated the superiority of ultrasonic technology. Fortuitously for the customer, this test measurement revealed a control valve failure. The refinery now uses the flow values delivered by the WaveInjector® for a reliable mass balancing in the upgrader process. |
Concrete BenefitsReliable non-intrusive measurementEasy installation under problematic conditions Straight forward installation with no need to open the pipe and no downtime No corrosion and wear caused by the medium, thus long operating life |
On Site: Reliable Flow Measurement with FLEXIM’s WaveInjector®Field-Proven Worldwide. |