BOSfluids

Tutorial
Water hammer (part 1)

The Water hammer tutorial is a 2 part tutorial describing the

phenomena of water hammers in piping systems and how BOSfluids
can examine the pressure spike and unbalanced forces. The tutorial
will go into further details and available options within the postprocessing of results.

BOSfluids

Water Hammer Part 1

1. INTRODUCTION
The following piping system, illustrated in Figure 1 and running from starting node 1 to end
node 125, is subject to a sudden valve closure at the pump suction, resulting in a water
hammer being produced in the piping system. BOSfluids will be used to calculate the
pressure rise and the unbalanced force that results from the closure. The valve closes in 0.4
seconds. The results of the unbalanced forces can be imported into CAESAR II to complete a
dynamic analysis and observe the impact of the water hammer in regards to the mechanical
natural frequency of the system. The first part of the Water Hammer tutorial describes the
model construction. The second part describes the post processing of results. The dynamic
analysis is completed by using the BOSfluids results in a dynamic analysis in a pipe stress
program. This is described in the tutorial Water Hammer Dynamic Analysis with CAESAR II.

2. BUILDING THE MODEL

2.1. Creating the piping model
Start the BOSfluids software and create a new model with the filename Hammer, selecting
the units Metric (mm). Using the information from Figure 1 and Table 1, define all the piping
and valve elements to create the piping system.

Figure 1 | 3-D model of piping network

Note: Specify the transient valve to be open in steady state action and closing in 0.4
seconds, starting at t=1sec in the Valve Actions menu.

Copyright Dynaflow Research Group.

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Water Hammer Part 1

Table 1 | Element parameters
Length(mm)

Element

X-Dim

Y-Dim

Z-Dim

1-4

1000

4-5

1000

Valve (name: valve1)

5-10

914,4

Bend at node 10

10-15

609,6

15-20

381

20-25

3657,6

25-26

-4572

26-30

-3048

30-35

2133,6

35-40

-1524

40-45

-1828,8

45-50

1828,8

50-55

6096

55-60

6096

60-65

6096

65-70

6096

70-75

1219,2

75-80

4572

80-85

1219,2

85-90

4572

90-95

6096

95-100

6096

100-105

6096

105-110

4572

110-115

-3048

115-120

-381

120-125

-381

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Description

Bend at node 25

Bend at node 30 and 35

Bend at node 45

Bend at node 75

Bend at node 85 and 90

Bend at node 110

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BOSfluids

Water Hammer Part 1

2.2. Boundary Condition

2.2.1. Theory
There are two boundary conditions in this model that need to be defined. One is at the
pump suction (node 1). The second boundary condition is at the supply tank (node 125). The
boundary condition at the supply tank will reflect the pressure waves coming from the
closed valve. How the pressure wave is reflected will affect the solution, so this boundary
condition should be modeled correctly.

Figure 2 | Boundary conditions of hammer model

An open ended boundary condition is one where the flow velocity at the boundary is
variable. A closed boundary exists where the flow velocity is constant. At these points,
incoming pressure waves are reflected just like the system end was closed. So at a pipe end
cap, or at a closed valve, where the flow velocity is zero, the system will see a closed
boundary condition.
For the hammer system above, pulling liquid from a supply tank, the node 125 will be at an
open end. At this location the pressure will be assumed to stay constant. The closed valve at
node 5 will act as a closed boundary. So the system will behave like a closed-open system
whose natural period is 4L/c where L is the length from node 5 to node 125, and c is the
speed of sound in the fluid. Reflections from a closed end pipe will cause a pressure
maximum and a corresponding velocity minimum. Closed-closed systems and open-open
systems will have a fundamental natural period of 2L/c. This relationship is demonstrated in
the figure below:

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BOSfluids

Water Hammer Part 1

When a frequency analysis is done of the water hammer solution for the system shown
above, it is expected that the fundamental period displayed will be 4L/c where L is the
distance from node 5 to node 125. Note that the actual wave front is shown as a sloped
black line in Figure 2 above. Actual wave fronts can be quite long as the total extent of a
valve closure wave front is (c)(tclosure) where tclosure is the valve closure time. If the speed of
sound (c) in the system is 1373 m/sec, and the valve closure is 0.4 seconds, then the wave
front length will be (1373)(0.4) = 549 meters or longer than the total system length! (The
actual wave front length will be some fraction of this distance since the valve closure is not
typically a linear function through the closure time duration). With the total system length
equaling 83 meters, and the characteristic time scale equal to 2L/c , the returning wave
begins cancelling the source before the valve is fully closed.
The distance between an elbow-elbow pair would have to be equal to or longer than 549
meters to develop the full unbalanced pressure thrust load due to the water hammer.
Therefore, the maximum magnitude of the unbalanced water hammer load will be smaller
than that predicted by the famous Joukowski equation: cdv. Water hammer and steam
hammer waves reflect from both closed and open ends, as well as from changes in diameter.
Only five reflections are needed to produce a resonant level response in an undamped
piping system. This means that even low magnitude pressure waves can produce large
displacements if they move in the system at a speed that corresponds to a mechanical
natural frequency. It is for this reason that some systems are particularly susceptible to
acoustic excitation:
1) Hot pipework supported by springs often have low natural frequencies
2) Any long runs of pipe that is hanger supported typically will often not have inherent
horizontal restraint.
3) Any system that is exposed to flow perturbations:

Systems attached to reciprocating equipment

Systems where valves open or close quickly

Systems where boiling or chemical reactions occur

Systems containing two phase flow.

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Water Hammer Part 1

2.2.2. Defining the boundary conditions

As stated in the previous section, two pressure boundary conditions need to be defined in
the model, the pump suction and source pressure. Boundary conditions are defined in the
sub-tab BCs and Nodes. The specified pressures are fixed pressure boundary conditions and
the values are given in Figure 2 and tabulated below.
Selecting BCs and Nodes tab, select All in the Node group. Select node 1, and change the Node
Type from Simple to Fixed Pressure from the drop down menu and enter the pressure value.
Repeat this for node 125.
Table 2 | Node boundary conditions
Node

Boundary Condition

Value

Fixed Pressure

P = 16.0 bar

125

Fixed Pressure

P = 17.2 bar

2.3. Unbalanced forces

When a pressure wave runs over a long straight section of pipe with an elbow at each end,
there is a difference in pressure at the first elbow with respect to the second elbow. The first
elbow has the water hammer pressure, whiles the second elbow is at operating pressure.
Consequently, a different force acts on each elbow, producing an overall unbalanced force.
The unbalanced forces that act on the piping system due to the water hammer can interact
with the natural mechanical vibration of the system, producing large displacement and
stress, leading to pipe rupture or damage to pipe fixtures. Therefore the mechanical
vibrations of the piping system need to be examined whenever a large pressure wave or slug
is sent through the piping system. Preventing large displacements and stress in the piping
system due to water hammer event, requires correct and adequate restraints in the piping
system.
Users often begin a dynamic mechanical study of a piping system by investigating the effect
of the largest water hammer loads on the most flexible axial portion of the system. It is
generally here where the largest displacement and stress concentration problems will be
seen. If the system is not flexible, then the user must be sure that the supports providing the
rigidity can sustain the maximum value of the dynamic loading.
The longest axial sections in the water hammer model are from node 45 to 75 and 90 to 110.
BOSfluids shall be used to determine the magnitude and transient force profile along these
two sections. These results are then able to be imported into a dynamic analysis software
package, such as CAESAR II, to study the effect on the supports due to the loads applied by
the water hammer.

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BOSfluids

Water Hammer Part 1

3. SETTING UP THE ANALYSIS

The steady-state as well as transient solution can be computed in BOSfluids. The steady state
solution is computed as follows:
1) Go to the tab Model and sub-tab Analysis, select Analysis Type Steady State. All other
analysis settings can remain as default.
2) Select Water as the fluid type.
3) Go to the tab Run and click the Run button

. Note that there is only 1 scenario,

namely the main model, shown in Scenarios. This is automatically selected. If more
scenarios are available, the user can select which scenario to run.
4) The job will run through the steady-state analysis. Errors and warnings are displayed
in the Messages window. After successful completion of the analysis run, the scenario
Main will appear in the list Completed.
To compute the transient solution, including the effect of the closing valve, return to step 1
and select Analysis Type Transient. Note that to compute a transient solution, a steady state
solution must always be computed. Therefore, when selecting transient as the Analysis
Type, the steady state solution is computed automatically by BOSfluids.
The users are able to adjust the output parameters to tune the analysis for their specific
needs. These parameters are described further below.

3.1. Adjusting the output parameters

There are several characteristics of the output that the user may wish to control. These can
be found in Analysis Analysis Type: Transient in the tables Transient and Output. The
common characteristics are described below.

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Water Hammer Part 1

Figure 3 | Transient and Output configuration options

3.1.1. Force Pairs

The user can enter the elbow node pairs for which the unbalanced force time history need to
be determined. The solver will identify the node pairs and calculate the unbalanced forces.
These results can then be easily exported to ASCII text files. For example a DAT file that
CAESAR II can interpret and use during dynamic analysis.
3.1.2. Simulation time
If the simulation time is too short, the maximum pressure, velocity, flow or cavity size
during the transient may not be calculated. If the total time is too long then runs may take
too much disk space and an inordinate amount of time to post-process or view. The longer
the total time the more conservative the resulting calculation.
The field for Simulation Time on the dynamic input screen can be left blank. In this case
BOSfluids will estimate a required total solution time based on its best estimate of the
system transient loading and the acoustic response. In many cases the BOSfluids calculated
solution times will be satisfactory. In some cases it will not. It is the users responsibility to
review the transient output and assure that a sufficient total calculation time has been used.
A patient review of the animated pressure results along with some quick hand calculations
should provide an adequate assurance. In the animated results the pressure wave should be

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Water Hammer Part 1

seen to progress from the source of the disturbance through the system at least two or three
times. (In some long pipeline systems only a single return of the pressure wave is required.)
The total time should also be long enough for any transient disturbance to stop, and the
system to have undergone its worst possible pressure loading scenario. As the user gains
more experience with transient fluid solutions, a greater confidence will be gained in the
comfortable estimation of an optimum total solution time.
Longer times are also required if low frequency data is to be obtained from the time history
plots. The longest period plotted can only be one-half to one-fourth of the total solution
time. (The lowest frequency plotted is the inverse of the largest period plotted.)
3.1.3. Lowest frequency
This is the lowest mechanical natural frequency of the piping system represented by the
fluid model. The parameter can be used during the dynamic analysis of the system to
determine the total solution.
This is an optional input. If entered this value will be used as part of the criteria employed
to establish the total simulation time. One criteria used for setting the total simulation
time is that the low frequency harmonic responses due to collective wave reflection must
be trapped.

The low frequency response is often due to the collective harmonic

contribution of multiple reflections.

3.1.4. Output Interval, start and end
The input fields on Analysis Transient Output are used to control the volume of the
output information from the transient solution. Long transient solutions can easily produce
many megabytes and in some cases gigabytes of disk file data if some care concerning
output selection is not exercised. BOSfluids attempts to set the Output Interval for the user
automatically based on system parameters and experience. This is a difficult value to
establish however without some prior knowledge of system behavior and the users desired
output. If the only information required from the transient solution is the maximum
pressure, or the maximum unbalanced load then the Output Interval can be any value,
because the maximum pressure and maximum unbalanced loads for all points in the system
are trapped during each time step. If the user wants an accurate depiction of the pressure or
load time history then a suitable Output Interval must be used. Accurate time histories are
needed when the time history data is to be used in a subsequent mechanical load analysis of
the system, or if a frequency decomposition of the time waveform is needed. BOSfluids
estimates the Output Interval based on an approximated fundamental acoustic mode, and
several experience factors. If the force vs. time function that is produced from BOSfluids is

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Water Hammer Part 1

to be used in a CAESAR II analysis then the Output Interval should be no larger than 1/4 the
period associated with the highest mechanical natural frequency of interest.
The user may also specify a starting and stopping time following the Output Interval entered
through Output Start and Output End. These input fields tell BOSfluids when to start and
stop writing time data to the output data file. This start-stop option for writing time history
data is used when the transient phenomena of interest occurs several seconds or minutes
into the simulation. An example where this option could be used is when vapor columns
form over pipe bridges. In this case it may take several minutes for the vapor column to
form, and then only a few more seconds for the bubble to collapse. There is no need to store
the solution before the bubble forms. The only interesting part of the simulation occurs
when the high pressure spike appears on collapse of the vapor column. If the output time
step is 4ms, and the vapor bubble starts forming at 40 seconds, and collapses at 50 seconds;
and if the total solution time is 1:30, then the user might specify an Output Interval, Start, Stop
input to be: 0.004, 40, 90. The tabular results also reflect only the transient that occurred in
the time window specified. This can be useful when a start-up transient must be allowed to
die-out before the real transient to be followed is started.

3.2. Defining the output parameters for the Hammer model

For the hammer model, a transient analysis is completed to observe the effect of the water
hammer. Define the simulation time to 4 seconds, to clearly observe the transient water
hammer in the piping system.
Since we are interested in the unbalanced forces in the system, we need to define the node
pairs of interest. Double click the Force Pair input field, and the Force Pairs window shall
appear. In the table, enter the nodes for which the unbalanced force will be calculated, these
should be at the bending nodes. BOSfluids automatically checks whether there is a bend in
between the two node pairs entered and will display an error if this is the case. Unbalanced
force should only be calculated for straight sections between bends. Enter node 45 to 75 and
90 to 110 as displayed in Figure 4.

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Water Hammer Part 1

Figure 4 Force Pair window

All other output options can be set as default.

The user should now be able to run the simulation and produce steady state and transient
results, the user can proceed to part 2 of the tutorial for post processing of results.

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