Dynamic modeling and simulation of a relief valve by Azok Ray Mechanical Engineering Department. Camegie-Netton Untveratty Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 ASOK RAY received his BE and ME degrees in electrical engineering from Caleutta University, India, and his WG in mathematics and Phil in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University in aston, Massachusotts For the last six years he has been engaged in dynamic nodeling, sinlation, and control system design of huclear-"and fossil-tueled power plants. His present Academic interests include abstract and applied nathenatics. Dr. Ray is a registered Professional Engineer in the Conmonwealth of Massachusetts. ooh 178 by Simaltin Corals, ne Teyana? oontimois syetane, digital atmilatton, induateial processes are control apsteAce 4A nontinean dynanie model of @ relief vatve te for- mulated in etate-epaos form from fundamental prinel Ples of rigid-body motion and flutd dynamics. Node Pananetere are ealeulated fron steady-state charmoter— Fetioe and the phyetoad dimensfone of the vatve. The transient reeponee of the ronlinoar model (ap well a eyetem eigemaluee ard the frequency reepowe of 2 Vinoarized nodet) ie obtained by digital eimlation. Reeulte indioate that the opening tine of the valve te linearly related to the dinenafontecs pananeter given by the ratio of orifice length to tte radius. he aralyete provides design infomation and perform ange evaluation for fluid syotane inoorporating nelict Tt ie partioularly eutvable for relies ‘for Liquids and i oan be adapted for other appléaations ‘sTRODUCTION A relief valve protects equipment against excessively high pressure.!" It opens when vessel or pipeline pressure exceeds the allowable maximum valve, relessing Fluid to maintain pressure within design Timits. hydraulic transients in relief valves are important in Fluid system design. I£ the initial delay in opening the valve 13 comparable co the response tine fer fluid flow, systen dynamics will be influenced by the Loca- ton'snd characteristics of the valve. For example, tube rupture in a heat exchanger (containing Liquid on the Iow-pressure side) may cause a pressure surge lasting 4 few milliseconds, whereas’ the opening. tine of tho relief valve, on the low-pressure side, may be tens of millisaconds.!? On the other hand, if the Frequency of excursions in the inlet pressure of the valve matches its natural frequency, the valve may pecillate and chatter excessively. Although fluid systens are often designed on the basis of steady-state valve performunce, +? sone in vestigators nave recognized the influence of relief valve dynamics op the perforsance of high-pressure fluid systens,5"!2 To simulate relief-vaive dynamics, Fovler et al? considered only: the nass-spring effect in studying pressure surges in a nest exchanger. In asimilar study, Sunaria et af.!? included flvid in- ertla effects in the valve orifice but did not arrive st an explicit model of the valve. In this paper, # nonlinear tine-Invariant deterministic model of a relief valve is formilated in state-space Fora, Dynamic equations are derived from fundanental principles of rigid-body action and fluid dynamics.©»10 Aisemenpirical steady-state model 1s developed; it produces results that natch the manufacturer's Sata. Despite che eupirical elenent in its design, the model uses the basic principles of fluid sechanies.2+10 Although the model is formated for a relief vatve for Liquids, the approach can be adapted to other fluids, For example, Liso's® steady-state model of a reliefivalve for vapor can be modified to incorporate dynamic effects SIMULATION Ho‘The set of equations which form the mathonatical nodel is given in the Appendix. Numerical results for the transient response of selected system vari- ables were obtained from the nonlinear model using (CSMP-I1T? on an TBM 370/158 computer. Eigenvalues land frequency response of linearized system models Were generated from 2 FORTRAN version of the CSMP- TIP model used as 2 subroutine in general-purpose analytical prograns.t*!! Using 4 load module, the typical computer execution tine for similating the ‘transients for a period of 1 second was about § CPU Seconds on an TEM'370/158 (loading time excluded). NOMENCLATURE 4 Cocfticients Effective valve dise area exposed to fluid pressure Pp 4,, Maximun Value of effective valve disc area Orifice ares 3 Body force oe Control surface 29 Control volume Gq Discharge coefficient of valve FF Coafficient for viscous damping for moving parts Force acting on the entire control surface except the valve aise 2 Acceleration of gravity i Index J Index 1, Overpressure factor Xi, Spring constant Wass of moving ports Unie normal vector P* Set pressure in gauge Valve inlet pressure in gauge P, Pressure at valve seat in gauge orifice radius Reference vector Surface forces tine Fiuid velocity Fluid voluné Mass flow rate of fluid Maximun mass flow rate of fluid Valve 1ift Noximin 11.£¢ of valve Orifice length Initiel deflection of spring Normalized overpressure Meximm value of normalized overpressure Froid density Normalized valve 1ift (2/2,) DESCRIPTION AND OPERATING PRINCIPLE ‘The relief valve considered in this analysis (see Figure 1) is typical of those used in process and power industries for liquid service, It is a con- Eimuous-action device which functions as a spring- loaded pressure regulator. As the driving force (£luld pressure) overcomes the spring force, the valve starts to allow the liquid to escape." Further increases in system pressure lift the valve dise from its seat, and the flow rate increases. The flow is diverted dowmards by the cup-shaped dise, and its dizection 1s reversed, This creates reaction forces that Lift the dise further. The valve discharges to atmospheric preset ASSUMPTIONS ‘This study assumes that the infinite-dinensional distributed-paraneter process can be represented by 2 Finite-dinensional Lumped-paraneter model. This approach has been experimentally verified in dynanic modeling of electro-hydraulie servovalves.® Other pertinent assumptions are as follows: (1) the pressure drop in the vertical portion of the valve orifice is caused by fluid inertia alone. (2) The valve spring is Linear (3) Coutonb friction in the moving parts is negligible: (4) Changes in fluid density are negligible. (6) The pressure difference between valve opening and Elosing (hysteresis) is not significant. The following parameters were evaluated and found to be negligible: (2) Pressure-drop caused by gravity inside the valve (2) Priceionel pressure drop in the vertical portion of the valve orifice (3) Fluid mass. inside the valve compared to the mass of the moving parts: DEVELOPMENT OF MODEL, EQUATIONS A valve schenatic showing the fluld control votune and moving parts is given in Figure 1," Conservation OF Linear sonentun?’!0 in Cartesian tensor notation yeide INO, Roty = B05 tr + 11 ant a (On 2 lumped average basis, the 2-components in (1) For 2 homogeneous incompressible fluid can be approxinated as, 5, > °DAg,0 = Selita, +a] - (uy tue (2) where muss flow rate W = phyuy * pAgtp. The surface Forces 5, in the s-direction'can be apfit into two parts: the force exerted by the valve disc on the Hsia, and the e-component Fy of the forces acting on the encize control surtace elcept the valve aise 5,2-HG+3) eRe er SupstLeuting (3) In (2), and neglecting the term App (because A,pyp << H) yields wes ea)] = -wiged) - f8- 1,00) +P, + yeu) (4)Steady-state model ‘The steady-state form of (4) is Pye + Kf, a) - (ut ue o ‘The left-hand part of the above equation depends on dine pressure Py and flow W, and an explicit analyti- cal relationship is difficult to obtain. This problem Se circunvented by constructing @ senieupirical vela~ Honship in which paraneters are adjusted so that the Steady-State nodel results match the manufacturer's Gata.) This approach simplifies the model structure and thos facilitates simlation of the overall fluid system. It proceeds as. follows: Define a variable 4 (call it the effective area of the valve dise) such that PAS + (uy tu o men the valve is shout to open at the set value PF Of Line pressure P,, Equation 5 reduces 20 Pra, =X 1 Hey 0 M9 o For steady-state conditions with valve Lift # (0 <2 2 2) and normalized overpressure @ (L.e., Py * (eae), Equations §, 6, and 7 yield As UA ens/P]/ +0) o At rere overpressure (x0), the valve is closed (ies 220) and 4A. A'is a strictly nonotonical- VALVE SPRING ty Increasing fametion of 2, 1. the effective ares Of ihe vaivetalse Incresses’as"tig yalve rises.) Ae Sicinie ovetprassura og, the valve Ie fly open Caaay) and the annie? operigg aves for fold fige GUT the critice oleest ites: tray = angie Loot tg Sng/de tn this state, 4 alan Setaine feb tositun"valed und can be valued 33 fg * s+ hyBy/PAI/ (14 3) o Ising (9) in (8), A is obeained in terms of normalized jive Hitt (@ * 2/3.) and overpressure a A= [leg /O +a}, + C0-o/are}, (0) For incompressible Flow, the mass flow rate W is approximated by the orifice equation®+ (1 + adel w= 0g 4,6 2PC + aol an neglacting the gravity head of fluid since a599 <= Pr(iva).. For the fully open condition (é, © 1), ‘the maximum flow race is ” Bea : 4, = 0,4, A +9,)07 an ‘The overpressure factor £,1+? can be found from (21) int UD ? i, = WM, = ELC + 0)/(2 + 09) TF as) ° ‘The manufacturer provides steady-state data (Table 1) {in the form of the overpressure factor K, as 2 func \ dizer valve D1sc 2, PRESSURE Pe TIME VARYING CONTROL SURFACE +t YZ (3, ATMOSPHERIC JPRESSURE. VELOCITY Us,AREA Ay FixeD witht THE PIPE ‘STRUCTURE, NOTE: CONTROL VOLUME ‘SHOWN BY BROKEN LINES Figute 1 ~ Simplified valve schematic. |, PRESSURE P, VELOCITY Uy AREA A, The mubers 1, 2, 3 refer ta the pipe carrying the fluid, the valve ize, and the relief outlet to atmospheric pressure, respectively, ro vy SIMULATIONTebte 1 Steady-state valve characteristics Normalized overpressure* 90.0 overpressure factor# X00 pr ts Normalized valve Lift £ 0.0 Effective valve seat area 4 4, 0.4616 4, + 0.599 4, 0.05 on 0.25. 0.34 0.6 10 osm 0.6396 10 0.7268 4, + 0.32764, 4, Available directly fron the manufacturer's data tion of normalized overpressure a.? Using these data in Equation 15, ¢ is obtained as a single-valued Hietion of a, which is substituted in (10) to obtain effective valve area A as a function of normalized Valve lift. 4 (6) is approxinated by a third-order polynonial in the range of interest 3 astast as ‘he coefficients ap, aj, ay, and ay should be evaluat ed from the nanufaturbr's*data. > Dyranto equations ‘The dynanics of the valve is given by MG +e) + KGa ew) PA a) equation 15 1s conbined with Equation 7 to give B+ @A- Pa, - fe-xnim as) ‘The pressure drop from location "1" to location 134 in Figure 1 is primarily caused by flow resistance and inertia. The stagnation pressures at locations "I! and.'2 are almost equal in the steady state but aay differ significantly under transient conditions because of fluid inertia in tho orifice. Then, the Pressure drop from location 2" to location "3" can be trested as the effect of flow resistance only and, ina form similar to (11), can be expressed as . a W = 044, 50270) an ‘The distributed fluid-flow process has been approxi rated by 8 lumped model in shich the pressure drop from ‘I! to "3" has been split into two parts: the ‘transient component between '1" and '2" and the Steady-state component between 2" and '3". Combining (6) snd (15) with (4), and setting Pye (lea) yletds Flwa,+o1 + (rasa - 2 as) Substituting (17) in (18), setting ¢ = 2/s,, and rearranging yields Ha) - Pts, mare (err y8034, G, + Pal Lele, +) as) Equations 16 gnd 19 can be arranged in state-space form with x, #, and Py ae the state variables. The wodet equations and physical constraints are given in the appendix. ra oy NovemBer 1978 SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The physica) dimensions and operating condition, for The Faltee valve ate given sn Table f. Tue simula: lon results are presented in Figures 2 eo'41-"The Eranslent sesponscs of the sodel‘were observed for a Tovpercune step increase in valve tet pressure vom a sleny state condition 2 ©'100 peig (0.9008 = 108N/n?g). Initial (state variable) conditions were A205 HOO: A =m The nonlinear adel was LinearSand at oqitibriun Eoyeltion corsesgonding to lovpessent overpressure, Frequency Feponser wef obtained for thie Tineat nant Figure 2 shows the dynanics of valve 11¢t caused by 44 I0-percent step increase in overpressure in the fluid Tine, After an initial delay, the position of the valve stom approaches # steady-state value asymp- totically.. The dynamic Tesponse of the valve depends fon physical dimensions. Figure 3 shows the (almost) Tinear dependence of the opening tine of the valve fon the dimensionless number o/1,, the ratio of orifice length to orifice radfus; the opening time is defined as the tine required for the valve to reach 95 percent of its final steady-state position follow ing a step disturbance of the pressure in the Fluid ine: “Hence, It 15 possible to estimate the opening tine of a vaive from the known data for another valve of similar type. Table 2 Valve paraneters and physical dimensions Hy * 6.082 « 10" N/a (545 IbE/in) a B+ 4,750 «107? m (0.187 in) 6, + 0.6105 Zé ‘= 0,680 ke (1.5 1b9) Pr = 6.894 x 105 W/n® guage (100 psig) W, = 2,1296 ke/s (2.488 8 tbn/s) 2, 54445 x 10°? » (1.75 in) ay = 0.25, 9,994 * 102 kg/m? (62.4 Ybw/ft?)°. 20 -® oy sump TwcKEASE IN TRLET FLUID 300 PSIG (0.009 %30° N/a? GANGS) 58 a oe 2 06 a4 ~40. . eso ; 60 i _ 3 FE so i a a $4 220° i EF ayo Boe 209 10! et a0? aot Frequency (radians/second) Figure 4 ~ Prequency response for normalized valve Tift versus normalized overpressure 0.0 00 0.2 04 06 08 1.0 aod ‘Time (seconds) System matrix and eigenvalues Figure 2 ~ Dynamic response of valve lift (sodel' Linearized st equilibriun point ‘with I0-percent overpressure) ‘The system matrix and eigenvalues for the Linearized odel are given in Table 3, The real negative eigen Value [which is approxinately 11 second!) causes the Systen matrix Sluggish valve response (see Figure 2), The pair of a a 4 complex eigenvalues indicates the possibility of 2 Mgh-frequeney oscillations. The frequency response Za) [0.0 10 0.0 of normalized valve Lift with respect to normal zed overpressure is shown in Pigure 4, The corner fre- quency in the vicinity of 10 radians per second is 2G : Felated to fluid inertia in the orifice, and the pair e@) [4.439 10" 0.0 15.03 Of commer frequencies at approxinately 800 radians per second results from the mass-spring combination : Following a pressure surge, acoustic raves and Bey [2rereao® 4.557108 1.681108 periodic. pressure variations ste expected at the valve inlet. If the frequency of pressure waves is close systen eigenvalues (second!) . Real part Imaginary part -11.675 0.0 1.25 =78.230 793.8 =78.250 793.8 a to the natural frequency of the valve, the valve may experience excessive oscillations nd’ prolonged chattering. a concustons A nonlinear dynamic model of 2 relief valve has been formlated in state-space form from fundamental prin- ciples of rigid-body fotion and fluid dynamics. “The ‘model provides useful information for transient '— sarmerens ror me ‘Mine to reach 95% full open position (seconde) t Gnalysis and design of fluid systems incorporating 1 ute Cares STE Pellet valves! 0.25 1 1 Simulation results indicate that fluid inertia in the 1 valve orifice produces s damping effect on valve 1 notion resulting in an initial delay. The opening 0.09, 1 tine of the valve 1s approximately proportional to ° 10 20 30 the ratio of orifice length to radius. The mss- Length/rediue for valve orifice Spring combination of moving parts may generate osetllations and chattering as a result of high- Figure 3 ~ Paranetetc evaluation of relief Frequency pressure variations at the inlet of the valve reszonse valve. soos OH‘The analytical technique presented here is particular- ly sulted for dynamic mdeling of relief valves for Tquids, and it can be adapted for other applica tions as well. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ‘The author acknowledges many helpful suggestions from Dr. D. A. Berkowite and Mr. V. Hs Sunazia. Appendix Summary of model equetions ‘The differential equations for the selected state variables 2, 3, and Py, are He an Ge@) = A= PA, = fa - KIM (a2) [Rete os canes joy - Lena te, 1901 where T= max(t2jq2) and 4 1s a paraneter chosen by the user (a typital value of 8 15 0.001) Equation A-3 is a modified form of (21), where the T factor 1s introduced to avoid division by zero when the valve Life is zero, Physically, an infinitely Tange pressure derivative is only possible for a truly incompressible fluid. No real fluid is abso: lutely incomprassible, and the factor circumvents ‘the nimerieal difficulties, Supporting algebraic equations are: [ky * +41 Ora) (a4) rn 2 Pol? 5) od 46) 5 ae bo aje/sye we 0 ‘The coefficients a, vere evaluated from sonvfacturerst data.’ = Ltg7924, - 1.102884, 1 ay + 0.088 114, + 0.060554, ag * -0.282084, + 0.089764, Physical constraints are x50 and $= max(0,d) if 2 <0 (A-8) on ( Bnin@o,d) if 2> 4, (9) REFERENCES 1 BEARD, C.S. Final Control Blenente Clinton” New York 1969 2 BLACKBURN, J.F. REETHOF, 6. Fluid Power Controt RIT Press. Canbridge, Massachusetts 1960 SHEARER, Jt. 3 Consolidated Safety Relief Valves Dresser Industrial Valve and Inctrunent Division Alexandria, Louisiana January 1074 4 EISPACK—a Genenal Puapos ‘Argonne National Laboratory ‘june 1972 Bigenproblon Routine ‘Argonne, TLlinois 5S FOWLER, D.W. HERNDON, To. WABRUND, RC. An inalyeie of Potential Ovenpreceure of @ Heat Brohonger Shell due toa Ruptured Tube ASME Petroleun Engineering Conference September 22-25, 1968 Preprints 6 FREDERICK, D. GHANG, 7... Consinuien Neohavioe Allyn’ Baton Boston, assachusetts 1965 7 IBM Continuous Syeten Modeling Program III, Program Feferanoe Namal No, 8784-150 New York 1972 rot wy Novenaer 1978 8 uno, 6.5. Analjate of Powe Plant Safety and Relief Valve Vent seaoke ASME Transactions Jowmal of Bigineertng for Pover October 1978 pp. 484-494 9 MARTIN, D.J- BURROWS, ¢.R The Dyranie’ Chanacterieties of an Bleetro-Bydeaulic Servovale 4S Tranoactions Neasuvement, and Conteot 06 Jounal of Dynamia syetena, December 1976 pp. 395- 10 SHAS, 1-H. Neohantoa of Fluide MeGraw-Hill New York 1962 11 SPRINGER, T.E. FARMER, O.A TAP —2 Steady-State, Frequency Reoponce and Pine Reoponve Simulation Progran Proosedings Fall Joint Computer Conference AFIPS Press 1968: 12 sunantA, V.H. HERBERT, 3. Model 20 Prediet Pramett Consequences of a Heat Exchanger Tube. Rupture Saericen Petroleum Institute Conference Septenber 22-25, 1968 ROVNAK, JA. HEITNER, 1