ABSTRACT
SIMULATION OF FLOW TRANSIENTS IN LIQUID PIPELINE SYSTEMS
Koç / , Genç / er
M.S., Department of Mechanical Engineering
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. O. Cahit Eralp
November 2007, 142 pages
In liquid pipeline systems, transient flow is the major cause of pipeline damages.
Transient flow is a situation where the pressure and flow rate in the pipeline rapidly
changes with time. Flow transients are also known as surge and Waterhammer which
originates from the hammering sound of the water in the taps or valves. In liquid
pipelines, preliminary design parameters are chosen for steady state operations, but a
transient check is always necessary. There are various types of transient flow
situations such as valve closures, pump trips and flow oscillations. During a transient
flow, pressure inside the pipe may increase or decrease in an unexpected way that
cannot be foreseen by a steady state analysis. Flow transients should be considered
by a complete procedure that simulates possible transient flow scenarios and by the
obtained results, precautions should be taken.
There are different computational methods that can be used to solve and simulate
flow transients in computer environment. All computational methods utilize basic
v
flow equations which are continuity and momentum equations. These equations are
nonlinear differential equations and some mathematical tools are necessary to make
these equations linear. In this thesis a computer program is coded that utilizes
&ldquo / Method of Characteristics&rdquo / which is a numerical method in solving partial
differential equations. In pipeline hydraulics, two partial differential equations,
continuity and momentum equations are solved together, in order to obtain the
pressure and flow rate values in the pipeline, during transient flow. In this thesis,
MATLAB 7.1 is used as the programming language and obtained code is converted
to a C# language to be able to integrate the core of the program with a user friendly
Graphical User Interface (GUI).
The Computer program is verified for different scenarios with the available real
pipeline data and results of various reputable agencies. The output of the computer
program is the tabulated pressure and flow rate values according to time indexes and
graphical representations of these values. There are also prompts for users warning
about possible dangerous operation modes of the pipeline components.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12609018/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 November 2007 |
| Creators | Koc, Gencer |
| Contributors | Eralp, O. Cahit |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for METU campus |
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