Prevention of Water Hammer in Pipelines in Case of Emergency Shut-Off by Fast Acting Valves

Abstract

The paper presents a method to prevent the water hammer by an adaptive control of the valve closing process. For this purpose, the valve is equipped with a brake system that acts onto the rotation axis of the valve flap. The brake cylinder of the applied hydraulic disk brake is connected to the pipeline just upstream the valve, so that the fluid pressure may activate the brake. By this means the closing is interrupted when the pressure of the fluid increases due to the water hammer. The pressure peak is limited to a maximum pressure given by the user. The described system does not need any external energy source. Furthermore, it adapts to changes of the pipe system parameters, such as varying pipeline length (e.g. liquid supplied from tanks with a different distance from the valve), fluid velocity or physical properties of the fluid. These are major advantages compared to traditional damping systems, which delay valve closing in a fixed manner.