V-Cone

The V-Cone is a highly customizable product. Leveraging our engineering assets, we’re able to take customer specifications and create a custom metering solution. We accept simple requests like custom lengths and bi-directional flow, as well as complex requests like higher levels of material specification such as Hastelloy cones and internally cladded Inconel layer on low-temperature carbon steel. McCrometer has the ability to customize the V-Cone to meet a variety of customer needs.

If you’re looking to specify a V-Cone for your application, you’ll need to gather a few pieces of information before getting started. You’ll need process properties such as pressure, temperature, flow rate, and the fluid properties of the fluid you want to measure. Second, you’ll need properties of your line including the internal diameter of your line, pipe schedule, and flange class pressure rating. Once you’ve gathered all this information, you can utilize McCrometer’s V-Cone Sizing Tool and input information and receive preliminary engineering calculations to see what the DP in your line might be and to make adjustments as necessary.

Standard, McCrometer sizes meters for 10:1 turndown. We can go much lower than that, such as 30:1 or 50:1. It depends upon the conditions of the flow applications. The type of electronics configurations must be taken into consideration as well. For example, if you have a flow with a maximum DP of 250″, a 250″ transmitter would usually accompany that meter. However, if the meter is meant to measure down to almost 0″ of water column, you might observe that the lower 50% of flow is in the bottom 10% of your transmitter’s signal range. In order to compensate for that on high turndowns, you’ll want to combine a 25″ transmitter with that setup. Stacking your transmitters will give you the full range of accuracy in the signal measurement.

This highly robust and durable meter has a standard lifespan of 25+ year. However, in speaking with longtime customers, many have V-Cones that have accurately measured for even longer – and we have the impressive technical data to substantiate those claims!

The V-Cone can measure a wide variety of flow media (liquids, gasses, oils, steam, wet gas, etc.) in a number of industries such as oil and gas, power generation, pulp and paper, mining and metals, HVAC systems, wastewater and more.

McCrometer offers two different types of DP technologies. The first is our standard spooled V-Cone and the second is our compact, flangeless form factor Wafer-Cone. There are a number of similarities aside from the technology: the straight-run requirements are 0:3 upstream and downstream. There are also a number of differences, including accuracy (up to ±0.5% for V-Cone and up to ±1% for Wafer-Cone). The range of beta ratios is also the same, from 0 to .45 and 0 to .85, however, the form factor of the Wafer-Cone provides something very interesting: it has a hot-swappable, interchangeable cone! Over time, as conditions in your line change, you can change out the cone without the need to replace the entire meter. For example, a customer that is measuring with a 2″ Wafer-Cone on a wellhead application can place that cone during the initial time of purchase. Over time, the flow of gas through the line may decrease, decreasing the over DP. If the customer would like to avoid buying a second, they can either replace the cone or utilize 1″ custom reducers to simulate that of the 2″ Wafer-Cone, eliminating the need for any pipe alterations.

There are a number of cone meters on the market today, however, there is only one V-Cone. McCrometer is the original cone meter. Our V-Cone was invented and patented in 1985, and has since been an industry leader in DP measurement. We have over 75,000 V-Cones installed in six continents across the globe, and that number continues to grow year over year.