Fuel consumption is energy consumption – energy varies directly to the mass of the fuel. Therefore direct mass flow measurement is key to highly accurate energy management.
With variable fuel prices and tight regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, fuel efficiency has become a major concern for the transportation industry and especially for the marine business. Approximately 50% of all operational costs of ships are fuel costs. To manage fuel consumption responsibly, considering ecologic, economic and legal reasons, requires an innovative fuel management system based on reliable, highly accurate and durable flow sensors.
Coriolis mass flowmeters are state of the art instruments using the Coriolis force to measure the mass flowrate of any kind of fluid with utmost precision. The fluid flows through vibrating tubes generating a Coriolis force that creates a phase shift of the vibration between inlet and outlet. As there are no moving parts in the fluid, no wear occurs, and maintenance is reduced to a minimum.
In the past, flowmeters using vibrations onboard ships created issues. The new generation CoriolisMaster, however uses very high operational frequencies well away from any possible vibrational noise onboard ships. It is therefore possible to gain DNV approval for the meters even for harsh environment areas onboard ships.
In addition, possible mechanical stress from installations has no influence as the stiff flowmeter housing is designed to decouple outer installation forces of up to 40 tons. Besides traditional current or pulse outputs, fast Modbus communication outputs are available, ensuring seamless integration with any kind of ABB fuel efficiency system. This data link provides direct access to all kinds of measurement values like flow, density, temperature and concentration as well as diagnostics information. Even remote access is possible.
Benefits
Marine fuel consumption measurement in accordance to SEEMP guidelines using a CoriolisMaster flowmeter provides many benefits:
- Reliable and highly accurate mass measurement:0.1% accuracy
- Immune to harsh vibrations
- Operation at high frequencies of about 400 Hz, far away from noisy vibration frequencies onboard (~10…200 Hz)
- No upstream or downstream straight pipe sections and inlet filters required
- No need for pressure temperature compensation
- Maintenance free:no moving parts in the fluid
- Real time density measurement for fuel quality control
- Minimum pressure drop through the meter