Study on Influencing Factors and Measurement Accuracy Optimization of Clamp-On Gas Ultrasonic Flowmeters for On-Site Verification Systems

Gas flowmeters are a key reference for natural gas trade settlement. To advance on-site verification technology, this paper presents air and natural gas flow test systems employing a clamp-on gas ultrasonic flowmeter, and systematically investigates the effects of pipeline parameters, pressure conditions, transducer usage, and noise reflection on measurement accuracy. Quantitative results show that measurement errors can be controlled within ±2% by selecting appropriate transducer types and installing them beyond 20D downstream of disturbances. Moreover, the proposed dual-transducer synchronous measurement—using two sets of transducers at the same location in different acoustic directions and averaging the results—effectively suppresses radial velocity effects, reducing installation and flow-related errors to within ±1.5%. Installing a single layer of acoustic damping material (≥30 mm beyond the transducer) further improves the coherent signal-to-noise ratio above 30 dB, ensuring reliable performance under noisy conditions. These quantitative findings offer practical guidelines for on-site calibration of natural gas flowmeters, contributing to improved fairness in gas trade measurement.