1

Dr. Lay Tiong LIM

Total Indonesia (Balik Papan) 9
th
to 12
th
May 2011
Water Hammer Surge
Water Hammer
Water hammer is a pressure surge due to forcing a fluid
(normally liquid) to stop or change direction suddenly such
due to closing an ESD valve
Other causes of water hammer are pump trip/failure, check
valve slam etc
Build up of high pressure and result in shock wave
Also, the water downstream of the valve will attempt to
continue flowing, creating a vacuum that may cause the
pipe to collapse .
In general, pressure surges results in noise, pipeline
vibration, damages to plant's equipment such as valves,
pumps and pipe
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Mitigation Method
Reduce flow
Higher pipeline design pressure
Reduce valve closing time
Change operating procedure
Shorter pipe length
Pumping station bypass
Liquid surge relief valve, surge drum, air vessel, non return
valve and specialized surge arrestors onshore
Air and vacuum relief valves can be installed close to the
valve
Joukowsky equation
For a valve closing instantaneously
H
max
= v. a. / g (a)
where
H - head in meters
a wave speed
g - acceleration of gravity
v - change in velocity
In terms of the pressure, this equation becomes:
P
max
= v.a. (b)
where P is the change in pressure and is the fluid
density
For longer closing times, effects such as packing of
pipeline before the valve is fully closed may give rise to
an additional increase
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Accounting for pipe wall elasticity
Pipe wall elasticity reduces the magnitude of the pressure
surge and causes more rapid decay.
a = (K/
l
)
1/2
/ (1+D/e.K/E)
1/2
Pipe wall elasticity correction:
D =inner diameter
e =wall thickness
E =modulus of elasticity
K =
l
/ (d
l
/ dp)
Bulk modulus
Olga Model-Tips
Boundary Condition
pressure boundary should be used at the inlet of the pipeline
Elastic Wall Option
OLGA 6.3 and onwards allows for elastic pipe wall materials
<Case Definition><Option>then <Elasticwalls>=ON
<Library><Wall><Elasticity><Elastic>=ON
Small spatial resolution (resolution of the pressure wave)
Uniform spatial resolution (aids solver stability)
To find maximum surge pressure the closing time of the valve
shall be less than 2L/a where L is the length of the pipeline
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Olga Model-Tips
Small fixed time step
T < Lx2a
Ls =section length
a = wave speed = (dpdP)
-0.5
DTCONTROL
SOUND_CFL=ON
No pressure wave is transported across the whole section
length in one time step
Fast Trend / profile interval to capture the pressure
wave
Results: Speed of sound and fluid
compressibility
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Results:
Black Oil
Min time step =0.01s
Section length =50m
Fluid compressibility =0.000157 (1/bar)
Speed of sound =880m/s
Time step< 50/880/2 =0.057
Closing time of valve < 2*6000/880= 13.6s
Results: Surge Pressure
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Results: Rigid and Non Rigid Pipe