Dynamic Simulation of Piping System Around Safety Valve for Closed Discharge System
Reaction force of safety valves acting to the piping system is one of key factors for the piping system design around the safety valves. In case of open discharge system, it is well known that a large reaction force acts to the piping corresponding to the fluid momentum force at the atmospheric discharge. On the other hand, reaction forces for closed discharge system may be relatively small since the forces acting to the adjacent two points with flow direction change such as elbows and tees are balanced within very short period. However, large reaction forces may act as a result of unsteady flow just after the initial activation of the safety valve. API RP520 mentioned that a complex time history analysis of the piping system around the safety valves may be required to obtain the transient forces. This paper explains a method of a comprehensive dynamic simulation of piping system around safety valves taking interaction among the valve disc motion, the fluid transient for compressible flow and the piping structural dynamics into account. The simulation results have good agreement with the experimental data. The effectiveness of this method is confirmed throughout an application to actual piping system around safety valves.