Unsteady State Flow In Pipelines

(V 2 / 2 g )

In a typical emergency pump shutdown scenario, the low pressure (Down-surge) can cause sever subatmospheric pressure, and column separation can occur beside severe high pressure (Up-surge) can occur upon vapor pressure collapse.
Protective equipment is often necessary to provide fluid and head to the system upon the down surge and also to bleed water out of the system during upsurge. Most often the best protection for this situation is either the hydropneumatic tank or surge tank.

Hydropneumatic tank Gas vessel Air chamber

Its a vessel contains fluid at the bottom and entrapped gas (Usually Air or Nitrogen) overlying the liquid.

Surge tank Its a vessel contains fluid with free surface subjected to the atmospheric pressure

The energy is stored in a form of pressure head either in Elevation + Water level (in surge tanks) Elevation + Water level + Pressure head (in hydropneumatic tanks) The stored energy in the gas pressure allows for a high hydraulic grade in a relatively small tank

Either the hydropneumatic tank or the surge tank typically will operate at normal pipe line pressure

Hydropneumatic Tank with Bladder

-A flexible and expandable bladder is sometimes used to keep the gas and fluid separate in the hydropneumatic tank. Since there is no contact between the compressed air and the water, there is no dissolution. There is thus no requirement for a permanent regulation system such as an air compressor, which is otherwise typically required (since the gas slowly dissolves into the water -When using a bladder, a 'pre-charge' pressure is first applied, before the tank is connected to the system and submitted to pipeline pressure. Transient protection performance when using a bladder type tank tends to be sensitive to the pre-charge pressure, since it determines the initial gas volume and sensitivity to pressure changes. Sometimes you may have a requirement on the pre-charge pressure, such as being 5% of the normal pipeline pressure

OPERATION
The installation of such a surge vessel is very simple, but must be performed with care. If well done, future checking of the vessel will be very easy. 1- Initially the precharge pressure must be adjusted to the value resulting from the hydraulic analysis (prechage can be either compressed air or nitrogen). At this stage the bladder contains no volume at all.

2-When the gate valve is opened the water will enter the vessel under static conditions, and begin to compress the gas (static pressure is always higher than precharge pressure)..

3-The water entering the vessel will further compress the precharged gas until a balance between the liquid and the compressed gas is reached

4-Immediately after a pump stop the pressure in the line will start to decrease ant the elastic energy in the vessel will discharge the water from the vessel into the line. This prevents dangerous low pressure along the pipe work.

5- As the pressure way become very low, the flow will reverse, this will then enter into the vessel via a reduced diameter ( drilled non return valve or bypass) if hydraulically required. Several oscillations may occur before static state is reached.

6-When the pumping station will restart, the vessel will continue to fill until dynamic steady state is reached and it is then once again prepared for the next pump stop.

Modeling Considerations
- The tank is preferred to be modeled directly on the main line without adding a short connecting pipe which may lead to excessive adjustment in the pipe length or the wave speed, which may intern have an impact on the results.

-The Hydropneumatic tank is typically installed just downstream the pump station to keep the water column moving upon pump shutdown. - The hydropneumatic tank location is uncertain if more than one tank is required.

Dark black line = physical elevation. Dashed black line = steady state / initial conditions head.

Differential Orifice
-The piping connection between the hydropneumatic tank and the system should be sized to provide adequate hydraulic capacity when the chamber is discharging, as well as to cause a head loss sufficient to dissipate transient energy and prevent the chamber from filling too quickly. Both of these requirements are met through the use of a piping bypass as depicted below.

- The "minor loss coefficient" that you enter is used for tank outflows. For tank inflows, the minor loss coefficient is multiplied by the "ratio of losses" and the resulting coefficient is used. The effect of a differential orifice can be large for some systems. Consider the below profile, showing the maximum transient head for a pipeline during an emergency pump shutdown event. The inlet orifice size was decreased by 75mm and a minor loss coefficient of 1.5 was used, with a ratio of 2.5. As you can see, it helps reduce the maximum transient pressures in the system. This could also mean a possible reduction in total required tank size

-In HAMMER, the headlosses associated with this can be modeled by using the "Minor Loss Coefficient", "Ratio Of Losses" and "Diameter (Tank Inlet Orifice)" attributes of the hydropneumatic tank. This is referred to as the differential orifice, because the ratio of losses allows you to have the inflow headlosses different from the outflow headlosses. In the above illustration, you can see that the check valve causes inflows to undergo larger headlosses as water passes through the bypass. So, the ratio of losses attribute is usually above 1.0 and applies to inflows.

As mentioned above, in many cases a hydropneumatic tank may be implemented only for transient protection. During a steady state condition, the tank may simply operate under the corresponding normal / steady state head ("line pressure"). So, for simplification, it is sometimes preferable to select "true" for the "treat as junction" attribute in the tank properties. Doing this allows the initial conditions solver to compute a hydraulic grade at the tank location, and the user simply assumes that the tank has already responded to the hydraulic grade and the air volume has expanded or contracted accordingly. In this case, the user only needs to enter the initial volume of air under the "transient" section of the tank properties that corresponds to that initial conditions hydraulic grade (unless using a bladder). It is important to remember that the tank is only treated as a junction in the initial conditions. During the transient simulation, it is still treated as a hydropneumatic tank. Basically treating it as a junction in the initial conditions is another way of establishing the initial hydraulic grade. The transient simulation will use that hydraulic grade along with the gas volume as the starting conditions. The gas will then expand and contract accordingly during the transient simulation, based on the gas law. If you already know the hydraulic grade that you'd like to use as the initial conditions, you would choose "false" for "treat as junction?" and enter it under the "physical" section of the tank properties. The initial conditions solver will then compute the flow/head in the rest of the system, with the hydropneumatic tank as the boundary condition. In this case, the tank will likely have either a net inflow or outflow, to balance energy across the system. So, your transient simulation may not begin at a true "steady" condition.

Elevation (base) - The elevation of the base of the tank. It is used as a reference when entering initial hydraulic grade in terms of "level" (i.e., if the "elevation (base)" is set to 20m and the operating range is set to "level", a "level (initial)" value of 1.0 represents an elevation of 21m). Operating Range Type - Specify whether the initial hydraulic grade of the tank is based on levels measured from the base elevation or as elevations measured from the global datum (zero). For example, if the base elevation is 20m, you want the initial hydraulic grade to be 70m, and you want to use levels, then select "level" for this field and enter 50m as the initial level. HGL (Initial) or Level (Initial) - Depending on the operating range type selected, this represents the known boundary hydraulic grade at the tank during steady state. Remember that it includes the water surface elevation plus the pressure head of the compressed air in the hydropneumatic tank. The transient simulation will begin with this head. However, if you've selected "true" for the "Treat as Junction" attribute, the transient simulation will ignore this value and instead use the computed steady state hydraulic grade (seen in the "Results" section of the tank properties). Liquid Volume (Initial) - This represents the volume of liquid in the tank at the start of the initial conditions, corresponding to the initial HGL. This includes the inactive volume below the affective volume, when using the "constant area approximation" tank calculation model.

Elevation -The elevation from which to calculate pressure in the hydropneumatic tank (typically the bottom of the tank.) It could be set to the estimated water surface, since the air pressure (used in the gas law equation) is above that point. However, the bottom elevation and water surface are typically very close, so this likely will not make a noticable difference. Minor losses coefficient Usually use 1.0 Tank Calculation Model - Specifies whether to use the gas law or a constant area approximation method during EPS initial conditions. The constant area approximation uses a linear relationship; the user must specify minimum/maximum HGL and the corresponding volume between. The gas law model is non-linear and follows the gas lawas gas is compressed, it becomes harder to compress it more. Atmospheric Pressure Head -When using the gas law tank calculation model, this field represents atmospheric pressure at the location being modeled. This is required because the gas law equation works in absolute pressure, as opposed to guage pressure. -Treat as Junction - Selects whether or not the tank is treated as a junction during the initial conditions. If "false," the "HGL (Initial)" or "Level (Initial)" field is used for the initial head. If "true," the initial conditions solver acts as if the tank is a junction and computes normal/'line pressure.

Hydropneumatic Tank with Bladder

Volume (tank) -This represents the total volume of the tank. This is only used in an EPS simulation (to find the gas volume so that the gas law equation can be used) or when using the bladder option ("Has Bladder?") during a transient simulation. When using a bladder tank, HAMMER assumes the bladder occupies this full tank volume at its "preset pressure," so this full tank volume value is needed by the gas law equation. (Pre-set) pressure -is first applied, before the tank is connected to the system and submitted to pipeline pressure. Transient protection performance when using a bladder type tank tends to be sensitive to the pre-charge pressure, since it determines the initial gas volume and sensitivity to pressure changes. Sometimes you may have a requirement on the pre-charge pressure, such as being 5% of the normal pipeline pressure

Diameter (Tank Inlet Orifice) - This is the size of the opening between the gas vessel and the main pipe line. It is typically smaller than the main pipe size. It is used to compute the correct velocity through the tank, so the correct headloss is computed based on the minor loss coefficient. Minor Loss Coefficient (Outflow) (Version 8i) - This is the 'k' coefficient for computing headlosses using the standard headloss equation, H = kV2/2g. It represents the headlosses for tank outflow. Ratio of Losses -This is the ratio of inflow to outflow headloss. For flows into the tank (inflows), the "minor loss coefficient" is multiplied by this value and the losses are computed using that. For flows out of the tank, HAMMER only uses the "Minor Loss coefficient". So, if you enter a minor loss coefficient of 1.5 and a ratio of losses of 2.5, the headloss coefficient used when the tank is filling would be 1.5 X 2.5 = 3.75. Gas Law Exponent - refers to the exponent to be used in the gas law equation. (the 'k' in PV^k = constant) The usual range is 1.0 to 1.4. The default is 1.2. Volume of Gas (Initial) When not using a bladder, the initial volume of gas is an important attribute. This is a required input field, representing the volume of gas inside the tank at the steady state pressure (initial conditions hydraulic grade minus tank physical elevation). During the transient simulation, this gas volume expands or compresses, depending on the transient pressures in the system. For example, consider a 500 L tank with base elevation of 20 m and initial hydraulic grade of 70 m. This means that the air pressure head is ~50 m. So, the user needs to decide how much space (volume) the entrapped gas pocket would take up, at this pressure.

Text Reports
HAMMER's text output results also offer important information for hydropneumatic tanks. To prepare for viewing this information, first check your transient calculation options. "Show standard output log" and "Enable Text Reports" should be set to "true". Next, enter a number for the "report period" field of your hydropneumatic tank. This represents how often extended text results will be reported. For example, if your timestep is 0.01 seconds and you enter '10' for the report period, it means you'll see extended text results every 10 timesteps or every 0.1 seconds