# Densitometer & BTU meter for gas pipeline application

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Hello All,

Do any one have information about Densitometers & BTU meters used for gas pipeline application.

Best regards,

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#### steve cordiner

a lot around, but it all depends on how much $'s you want to spend and to what level you want to measure. A gas chromat can set you back$100,000 if you want to go down to C6+ which you will need if you want to calculate energy.
Densitometers will also set you back and Solartron are kings here. Expensive stuff.

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#### Warren Scott

ABB, Applied Automation and Daniel both have online BTU meters that are basically gas chromatographs that are used is natural gas pipelines that are typically less than \$30,000 (depending on the options) and can be linked to flow devices to up date flow calculations.

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#### Eric Kelner

The typical approach to the determination of density and heating value in the U.S. Natural Gas Industry involves a gas chromatograph, an equation of state, and individual component properties.

The standard equation of state can be found in AGA Report #8. Component heating values can be found in the latest version of GPA 2145. Several manufacturers offer gas chromatographs for natural gas industry applications.

There is another approach that is coming in
the near future. It employs inferential techniques to determine gas mixture properties. This approach requires measurements of a few quantities in the gas mixture, and uses these properties as inputs to an inferential algorithm.

We have been developing this type of device for
about 4 years and are seeing very good results.
There are other devices of this type that are
in development by other organizations as well.

take a look at some of our publications on energy
measurement research at www.grimrf.org. There are other publications there that may also be of interest.

Good luck.

Eric Kelner
Senior Research Engineer
Southwest Research Institute
San Antonio, TX
210-522-3309

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#### Jon watson (Solartron Mobrey)

Plenty of densitometers about including our own ( "http://www.solartron.com":http://www.solartron.com ) and Onyx ( "http://www.onixsys.com/":http://www.onixsys.com/ ). For BTU you need the relative density or S.G. of the gas and the industry standard equations (AGA 9?). Onyx, i believe, use a density meter and temperature and pressure correction while we use a relative density analyser where the gas sample stream is maintained in temperature and pressure equilibrium with a reference sample eliminating the temperature and pressure corrections.
On the Solarton site you can download the manuals for the 795X gas flow computer which details all these calculations in the appendix and worked examples. I hope these will help you. I would recomend you also see what information Onyx can give you.

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#### Jon watson (Solartron Mobrey)

Plenty of densitometers about including our own ( "http://www.solartron.com":http://www.solartron.com ) and Onyx ( "http://www.onixsys.com/":http://www.onixsys.com/ ). For BTU you need the relative density or S.G. of the gas and the industry standard equations (AGA 9?). Onyx, i believe, use a density meter and temperature and pressure correction while we use a relative density analyser where the gas sample stream is maintained in temperature and pressure equilibrium with a reference sample eliminating the temperature and pressure corrections.
On the Solarton site you can download the manuals for the 795X gas flow computer which details all these calculations in the appendix and worked examples. I hope these will help you. I would recomend you also see what information Onyx can give you.