June 2009
Volume XV, No. 6
2009 Flow Control Innovation Awards Nominees

Technology Considered
2009 Flow Control Innovation Awards Nominees
As an incentive place votes in this year’s Flow Control Innovation Awards competition, we are offering all voters the opportunity to enter a random drawing to win an Apple iPhone 3G gift card (see sidebar on voting page for details).

Making the Most of Water
Trends & Opportunities in Membrane Filtration Technology
The need for fresh water increases every year, with demand driven by such factors as population growth, a rising global living standard, and an upswing in agricultural and industrial processes that require pure water. Suppliers of pumps, valves, piping, storage tanks, treatment chemicals, and testing and measurement instruments are well positioned to be enablers of growth in water markets going forward. And with revenues in the range of $400 billion per year with a strong year-over-year upsurge, the future looks bright in the water industry.

What's So Great About Vortex Flowmeters?
Proven Technology Struggles to Differentiate In a Competitive Market
Today’s flowmeter market is dominated by the heavyweights of measurement — magnetic, Coriolis, and ultrasonic. Together, these three flowmeter types accounted for close to half of all flowmeter revenues worldwide in 2008. And as the years go on, these new-technology devices continue to displace the old standards of flow measurement, i.e., differential-pressure (DP) and turbine flowmeters in many applications. While vortex flowmeters are part of the newer generation of measurement devices, they have never been as popular or as widely used as magnetic, Coriolis, or ultrasonic flowmeters.

Emissions Control
Spray Injectors Solve Gas Cooling Challenge
Refinery compliance with EPA MACT II standards is not a new topic. But the need for compliance has led to new technology and new solutions as deadline-driven upgrade and expansion projects progress rapidly.

Safety First
Placing the Priority on the Worker Over the Instrument
Last month we examined the installation of impulse tubing in high-pressure steam flowmeter applications. In a seminar some years ago, one of my students posed an adamant objection to the manner in which transmitters are taken out of service in steam applications. Fortunately, the student not only knew the procedure as to how to remove the transmitter from service, but also why it was done according to this procedure. The proposed procedure may not have been the best in a technical sense, but it made perfect sense if you value the wellbeing of yourself and your coworkers.

mailbag: Questioning Cavitation
Reader Struggles to Identify Cause of Pump Wear Band Damage
My name is Jerry. I work in reliability at a nuclear power plant. My colleagues and I read and discuss your articles in Flow Control magazine every month. We have a problem with cavitation on a salt water pump. Can you help?

QUIZ CORNER:
How Rising Density Affects DP Steam Flow Measurement
For a fixed differential-pressure measurement (say 100 inches of water column) in a differential-pressure steam flow measurement system, increasing density causes the compensated steam mass flow measurement to ...