Tech Briefs Magazine - October 2021 - 39a

DESIGN OPTIMIZATION
FIGURE 2     
FIGURE 3        
ö       
other factors. Some of the major types of gas meters include
diaphragm meters, rotary displacement meters, turbine meters,
ultrasonic flowmeters, and Coriolis meters.
Raychem RPG is one of the leading providers of domestic
gas meters in India, accounting for almost 80% of the market
share. At the Raychem Innovation Centre (RIC) in Gujarat, India,
researchers developed four new designs for gas flowmeters,
which were conceptualized, optimized, and validated using
multiphysics simulation software.
» DESIGN CHALLENGES FOR GAS FLOWMETERS
All of the gas meters currently available in India have their own
limitations. For example, in diaphragm meters, leakage from
moving parts and the diaphragm can cause measurement errors.
Rotary displacement meters and turbine meters, on the other
hand, have close to 35 components, increasing the probability of
mechanical failure and fatigue. Further, the enclosure size for any
gas meter is fixed, so any new meter design has to fit within the
given enclosure size. Therefore, the size of the device is another
important criterion for any new gas meter design. All of these
different criteria make it a challenge for these devices to be
approved during the final quality testing stages. In fact, rejection
rates can be very high.
The Raychem team, led by Mr. Ishant Jain, set out to
minimize the number of components in gas flowmeters and
reduce their rejection rate
during the quality testing
phase, thereby reducing the
total cost of manufacturing
for these devices. To do so,
the Raychem team performed
simulation analyses in the
COMSOL Multiphysics®
software.
» VALIDATING 4
GAS METER DESIGNS
WITH SIMULATION
The Raychem team developed
four gas meters based on
design optimization using
TRIZ, a problem-solving
methodology, and customer
requirements. They started
by validating a finite element
model of a conventional gas
meter design. The team then
extended their findings to
evaluate the proposed designs.
» DIAPHRAGM METER
WITH SCOTCH-
YOKE MECHANISM
The first of the new gas meter
designs is a modification
of the existing diaphragm
system, where the pantograph
assembly is replaced with
a Scotch-Yoke mechanism
to reduce the number of
components.
After arriving at their
optimized design (Figure
2), the Raychem team was
able to eliminate several
mechanical components from
the original design, in addition
to improving the accuracy and
sensitivity of the measurement.
The number of components
in the meter system was
significantly reduced, from
35 components of the earlier
diaphragm design to 5 or 6
COMSOL NEWS 39a
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Tech Briefs Magazine - October 2021

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