Chilled Water Flow Measurement with a V-Cone Meter

Yes of course people have experience with this type of meter. I have never heard of the V-Cone getting loose or falling off, and they are available with flanged ends at additional cost, or you could weld on your own flanges.

It sounds like you've had good experience with this type of meter?

The flanges add additional length to the meter which is already 31" long, that's 2 pipe diameters right there. Add the 1 or 2 more that is recommended and we are back to the installation requirements of a mag flow meter which has virtually no pressure drop and is very reliable.

I am aware of several dozen V-cone installations, all over 10 years old, none has had a broken internal element. Natural gas, coke gas, Dowtherm, dirty cooling water, among others. I consider the V-cone to be reliable.

I don't know the starting point at which V-cone calculates it upstream/downstream acurracy requirements, but for mags the starting point is generally calculated from the electrodes in the center of the meter body:

A 14" magmeter is 22" flange-to-flange, so its body provides 11", nearly 1 diameter. But that still leaves 4D+ upstream of meter run to approach a mag's stated accuracy. Less than that does effect the meter's accuracy. I'm not sure that the V-cone's 31" overall length really means 2 diameters in this respect.

V-cones do produce more pressure drop than a mag. The factory's flow sizing calculation for the DP cell should tell you what that drop is.

Read http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/71965#comment772452 before you proceed.

You are probably better off using an ultrasonic flow meter.

I don't see any correlation between the current question about a v-cone flow element, and the previous thread regarding a variable area rotameter. And why would anybody but a salesman recommend an ultrasonic flow meter in a turbulent region? Ultrasonics require a laminar flow and will not provide acceptable results in this type of application.