Characterization of Five-Hole Probes used for Flow Measurement in Stack Emission Testing

Published

May 16, 2018

Author(s)

Iosif Isaakovich Shinder, Aaron Johnson, Michael R. Moldover, James Filla, Vladimir Khromchenko

Abstract

We report progress towards the goal of reducing the errors in industrial smokestack flow measurements to 1 % by replacing S-probes with calibrated 3-D probes (i.e., probes that measure 3 components of velocity). NIST calibrated a commercially-manufactured spherical probe and a prism probe at air speeds (5 m/s to 30 m/s) and pitch angles (20 to 20 °) using a yaw-nulling method similar to EPA's Method 2F. The expanded uncertainty for 3-D air speed measurements of both probes was near 1 % at a 95 % confidence level. Most of this uncertainty is attributed to the irreproducibility of the calibration measurements and the uncertainty of the NIST's laser Doppler anemometer air-speed standard. Thus, the 1 % goal might be possible; however, to obtain this low uncertainty, several significant uncertainties consistent with EPA Method 2F must be avoided. We document these uncertainties herein.

Proceedings Title

2018 International Symposium on Fluid Flow Measurement (ISFFM)

Conference Dates

March 21-23, 2018

Conference Location

Querétaro, Mexico, MX

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

Method 2F, 5 hole probes, spherical probes, prism probes, stack flow testing, 3-D pitot probes, EPA RATA, Stack Emissions Flow Measurements, Yaw-nulling 3-D probe calibrations

Citation

Shinder, I. , Johnson, A. , Moldover, M. , Filla, J. and Khromchenko, V. (2018), Characterization of Five-Hole Probes used for Flow Measurement in Stack Emission Testing, 2018 International Symposium on Fluid Flow Measurement (ISFFM), Querétaro, Mexico, MX, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=925551 (Accessed October 25, 2025)