Numerical prediction of the flow rate through a flow meter with uncertain inflow profile

Flow conditions in industrial pipe and district heating systems are not ideal. Moreover nearly all types of flow measurement devices are sensitive to flow conditions at their inlet section. In this contribution the generalized polynomial chaos method (gPC) is used to study the influence of a disturbed inlet profile with swirl and asymmetry components through a single beam ultrasonic flow meter. This approach allows to estimate the expected variations of the measured volume flow as a function of the position and orientation of the modeled meter in an efficient way.