Company Profile

Daniel Orifice Meters & V Cone Flow Meters: Precision Differential Pressure Primary Hardware

Quick Answer: Daniel orifice meters and V Cone flow meters are differential pressure primary hardware for gas, steam, and liquid flow measurement. Silver Automation Instruments supplies both as complete flow meter packages, not just the primary element. Send your operating pressure in bar, temperature in °C, pipe size DN, and flow range to get a model selection and price.

Engineers working with natural gas, wet gas, steam, or brine often compare a Daniel orifice meter with a V Cone flow meter. Both are reliable in the field. But they solve different installation problems. A Daniel orifice meter is a standard choice for dry gas custody transfer. A V Cone flow meter uses less straight pipe and handles dirty fluids better.

What These Devices Do

A Daniel orifice meter uses a thin plate with a machined hole in the center. The plate sits between orifice flanges inside a meter run. When flow passes through the hole, pressure drops. A transmitter reads the high and low pressure sides and calculates flow rate. This is differential pressure primary hardware.

A V Cone flow meter places a cone shaped element in the center of the pipe. The cone flattens the flow profile before the pressure tap. This design needs only 0 to 3 pipe diameters upstream and 0 to 1 downstream. A Daniel orifice plate may need 10 to 20 diameters or more. In practice, many offshore skids and plant retrofits do not have that space.

Straight Pipe and Fluid Behavior

Straight pipe run is the first thing engineers check on site. For a standard Daniel orifice meter in gas service, long straight lengths before and after the plate keep the flow profile stable. If upstream elbows or valves sit too close, accuracy drops. We have seen this on customer sites many times. A short pipe run can shift the reading by more than one percent in gas custody transfer.

V Cone flow meters are less sensitive to upstream piping. The cone reshapes the flow profile inside the meter. This is why a V Cone meter fits well in crowded pump rooms, offshore platforms, and existing pipelines in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Industries and Applications

Oil and gas is the largest market for both devices. Natural gas lines in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East often use Daniel orifice meters for fiscal or allocation metering. A customer in Vietnam needed a DN80 meter run for fuel gas at 12 bar and 30 °C. Silver Automation Instruments supplied the orifice plate, meter tube, pressure transmitter, and PT100. Wet gas applications in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia often move to a V Cone flow meter because the gas carries liquid and the available straight run is short.

Water and wastewater plants use V Cone flow meters on raw water, brine, and sludge lines. For a desalination plant in Australia, a V Cone meter on a DN150 brine line handled conductivity above 45 000 µS/cm. A standard orifice plate would build scale around the sharp edge and drift over time. The cone shape does not hold solids the same way.

Chemical and food plants ask about both. A Daniel orifice meter with 316 stainless steel or PTFE lined parts works for acids and solvents. A V Cone flow meter with tri clamp connections is common for dairy and beverage lines. Marine customers often choose a V Cone meter for heavy fuel oil with viscosity up to 380 cP because the flow passage is less likely to clog.

What Data You Need for a Quote

Here is the thing. We can quote a Daniel orifice meter or V Cone flow meter quickly if you send one short list. Include fluid name, operating pressure in bar, operating temperature in °C, pipe size DN, flow range in kg/h or m3/h, and hazardous area classification. Most engineers skip this part and request a meter based on line size alone. That leads to poor turndown and ac