OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE

cent travel. The maximum design flow

Installed relative flow vs. relative travel Installed gain vs. Q/Qmax
is now at slightly less than 80 percent of 1.0 4.0
3.5
the fully open flow, giving ample safety 0.8

Relative flow

Installed gain
3.0
factor at the high end of the range. The 0.6 2.5

installed gain graph is much flatter and 0.4

2.0
1.5
well within the suggested limits. 1.0
0.2
Figure 5 is based on an application 0.5
0.0 0.0
where the system designer recom- 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Relative travel Q/Qmax
mended a 10-inch segment ball valve
after examining the installed flow and Installed pressure level
gain graphs and determining the seg- 100
45
80
25
110

ment valve was a good choice. The With revised pump

100
90
purchasing agent commented that

Pressure
80
a 10-inch high-performance butterfly 70
60
valve would cost approximately one- 50
P2

third less than the segment ball valve. 40

30
The system designer agreed to inves- 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
tigate the applicability of a high-perfor- Relative travel

mance butterfly valve, knowing the two

Figure 4. Installed characteristics of the valve with the revised figure 2 pump pressures
valve styles have quite different inher-
shown in red.
ent flow characteristics. Segment ball
valves tend to have a nearly perfect
Installed relative flow vs. relative travel Inherent flow capacity, C
equal percentage characteristic. High- 1.0
V

performance butterfly valves tend to 3000 Segment ball High-performance BF

0.8
Relative flow

have an inherent flow characteristic

Flow capacity, C V
0.6 2000
between linear and equal percentage.
The upper right graph in figure 5 0.4
1000

compares the inherent flow character- 0.2

istics of the two valves being consid- 0.0 0

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
ered. The installed characteristics are Relative travel Relative travel

linear between the design minimum 10” Segment ball valve

and maximum flows. The installed
Installed relative flow vs. relative travel Installed gain vs. Q/Qmax
gain of each valve meets the suggest- 1.0 4.0

ed gain limits between the minimum 0.8

3.5 Segment ball High-performance BF
Relative flow

3.0
and maximum design flows. The gain
Installed gain

0.6 2.5

of the segment valve is slightly closer 2.0

0.4
to 1.0. The maximum gain change of 1.5

1.0
the butterfly valve is 1.4:1, where the 0.2
0.5

maximum gain change of the segment 0.0

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0.0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
valve is 1.6:1. In this system, either Relative travel Q/Qmax
valve would likely control satisfacto- 10” High-performance butterfly valve
rily. In a system with different valve
pressure drop versus flow characteris- Figure 5. Comparison of a segment ball valve and a high-performance butterfly valve in
the same system. The installed gain of both valves is plotted on a single graph.
tics, this might not be the case.

Which pressure drop?
A question arose regarding the pres-
sure drop to use when sizing a control
valve. Assuming a system that has al-
ready been designed, the sizing pres-
sure cannot be arbitrarily assigned,
but the values of P1 and P2 need to be
obtained by an analysis of the friction-
al pressure losses and static pressure
changes in the system both upstream
and downstream of the control valve.
The ideal situation is where the person ered, and the one that allows satisfac-
selecting the control valve has a say tory controllability while minimizing
in determining what the control valve energy consumption will be selected.
pressure drop will be, most often by Curves of P1, the pressure just upstream
specifying the pump that will be used. of the valve, are shown for each of the
Using an installed gain analysis of vari- three pumps, along with the power re-
ous pumps that might be suitable can quired by each at a normal flow rate of
be helpful. 400 gpm. These curves slope downward
To demonstrate how this can be in proportion to the flow squared from
done, three possible pumps for the sys- the 100 gpm pump head (45, 60, and 75
tem shown in figure 6 will be consid- psig, respectively, for pumps A, B, and

WWW.ISA.ORG INTECH DECEMBER 2021 31

OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE

Pressure losses 5 15 5
@600 gpm

Pump head
6” Sch 40
drops 5 psi
from 100 gpm 70°F
to 600 gpm 10
Water P1 P2
TC

80 75 P1 (Pump C) 29 hp*
70 65
60 P1 (Pump B) 23 hp*
60
50
65 50 45 P1 (Pump A) 17 hp* 35
35 20 Pressure units: psig
50 40
5
35 30
20 P2 30
=% Inherent 10
10
characteristic
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
* At 400 gpm

Installed GainGain
Installed flow Installed
Installed gain
1.0 40
4.0
5 psi, 17 hp *

600 gpm
100 gpm
3.5
3..5
5 6” valve 35 psi, 29 hp *
0.8 3” valve
)/dh
30
3.0
Relative flow

Fully open flow

(Relative flow = 1.0) )/dh
max
Relative Flow

17 hp*: 644 gpm 6” valve 2.5

2.5
max
0.6
d(Q/Q

23 hp*: 749 gpm 3” valve

29 hp*: 852 gpm 3” valve 20
2.0
d(Q/Q

* At 400 gpm
0.4 1.5
1.5
Gain, Gain,

20 psi, 23 hp *
10
1.0 3” valve
0.2
0.5
0.5
* At 400 gpm
0.0
0
0.0
0 0.1
0.1 0
0.2
.2 0
0.3
..3
3 0
0.4
0..4 0
0.5
.5 00.6
..6
6 0
0.7
..7
7 0
0.8
.8 0
0.9
.9 1 1.1
1.1 1.2
1..2
2
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Q/Qmax
Relative travel
Relative Travel Q/Q max

Figure 6. Control valve installed gain analysis helps balance pumping energy and process controllability.
Segment valve graphic courtesy of Neles

C) to a pressure 10 psi lower due to the
combined effect of the 5 psi pressure
loss in the upstream piping and the 5
psi decrease in pump head from 100
The ideal situation is where the person selecting the
control valve has a say in determining what the control
valve pressure drop will be, most often by specifying the
pump that will be used.
gpm to 600 gpm stated in the figure.
The curve for P2, the pressure at the con-
trol valve outlet, starts with the 10 psig
static head of the tank at very low flows
and increases in proportion to the flow
squared to 30 psig as the downstream
piping and heat exchanger pressure
losses increase to their 600 gpm values.
The control valve pressure drops (the
difference between P1 and P2) are indi- three cases. What is interesting is the
cated in the figure by the arrows at the installed gain graphs.
left side of the figure for 100 gpm and at With the 17-hp pump, besides requir-
the right side of the figure for 600 gpm. ing a more expensive 6-inch valve, the
gain graph looks terrible. The installed
gain is the highest of the three (meaning
a larger flow error for the same valve posi-
tion error), it drops to 0.4 as it approach-
es the maximum design flow (the red
vertical line at 1.0 on the Q/Qmax scale),
and the variation in gain over the flow
range is almost 7:1, much greater than
the recommendation of 2:1. This is large
enough that it would be difficult to come
The analysis is performed based on up with proportional-integral-derivative
using a segment ball valve. The graph (PID) tuning parameters that would pro-
in the lower left of figure 6 shows the vide good and stable control over the en-
calculated installed flow characteris- tire required flow range. The gain graphs
tics. Keep in mind the installed flow of the 23-hp and 29-hp pumps fall within
graphs generated by the worksheet of the recommended gain criteria, but the
the reference 4 graph is relative flow, 23-hp pump is the winner, because its
so 1.0 is 100 percent of the fully open gain is closer to 1.0, and it also is the more
flow, which is different for each of the economical of the two to operate. n

32 INTECH DECEMBER 2021 WWW.ISA.ORG