Understand meter proving

A meter prover is basically a system of valves, recirculating pipe, and a blocking device such as a ball. This system has a calibrated displacement volume.

Each time the ball is forced by fluid pressure from one end of travel to the next it is called a prove run, and it causes a fixed volume of fluid to be displaced through the fluid metering device. According to API standard methods, several consecutive runs are performed, and the results are averaged.The displaced volume is used to compare the metered volume and determine the meter correction factor according to API standard methods. This correction factor takes into account the fluid pressure, temperature and density. The derived value is stored in the Meter Factor (mtrfact) table. The prover record is a configured software prover in the RealTime host which executes the prove run, then collates the data within the RealTime database (RTDB).

A provmtr is a record which contains configured information for a given meter being proved. It also contains an array that stores all the information gathered on each prove run.

In the run data array, calculated or derived fields are used to store the calculated values for average temperature, pressure, et cetera, as well as the meter factor for the run. The run data array can handle up to 10 prove runs.The provmtr record also contains a queue of prove reports that have been uploaded from a flow computer. Reports are held in the queue until you accept or store them.