Investigation on Redesigning Strategies for Water-Hammer Control in Pressurized-Piping Systems

Abstract

This paper explored and compared the effectiveness of the inline and the branching redesign strategies used to control water-hammer surges initiated into existing steel piping systems. The piping system is handled, at its transient sensitive regions, by replacing an inline, or adding a branching, short-section made of high- or low-density polyethylene (HDPE or LDPE) pipe-wall materials. The Ramos model was used to describe the transient flow, along with the method of characteristics implemented for numerical computations. The comparison of the numerical solution with experimental data available from the literature and alternative numerical solution evidenced that the proposed model could reproduce satisfactorily the magnitude and the phase shift of pressure head evolution. Further, the robustness of the proposed protection procedures was tested with regard to water-hammer up- and down-surge mechanisms, taken separately. Results demonstrated that both utilized techniques provided a useful tool to soften both water-hammer up- and down-surges. Additionally, the amortization of pressure-head-rise and -drop was sensitive to the short-section material and size. Moreover, the branching strategy illustrated several enhancements to the inline one in terms of period spread-out limitation, while providing acceptable pressure-head damping.