Benchmarking the Dual and Compound Techniques-Based Branching Design Strategy Used for Upgrading of Pressurized Hydraulic Systems

Abstract

Prior research has recognized that the compound- and dual-technique-based branching redesign measures, used as alternatives to the conventional technique-based one, were effective in upgrading steel pipe-based pressurized hydraulic systems. Principally, the compound technique used two different plastic material types for the short-penstock instead of the single material type utilized in the conventional technique. However, the dual technique is based on splitting the single penstock installed in the conventional technique into a set of dual subpenstocks placed at each connection of the main-piping system to hydraulic parts. This handling aimed at improving the conventional technique efficiency with regard to the tradeoff between the magnitude attenuation and period expansion effects of the transient pressure-wave signal. Accordingly, this study proposed a comprehensive comparison between the compound- and dual-technique-based branching strategy with particular focus on the tradeoff between the two last parameters. The plastic material types demonstrated in this study included the high- or low-density polyethylene. The application addressed a waterhammer maneuver initiated into a reservoir-steel-pipe-valve system. Numerical computations used the method of characteristics for the discretization of the 1D extended pressurized-pipe flow model, embedding the Kelvin–Voigt and Vitkovsky formulations. The finding of this study suggested that the high- or low-density polyethylene (HDPE–LDPE) setup of the compound technique is the most prominent protected system setup, providing an acceptable tradeoff between the attenuation of magnitude and the expansion of the period of pressure-wave oscillation.