Chem. Eng. Technol. 2009, 32, No.

2, 247251 247

D. Moncalvo1 Research Article

L. Friedel2
B. Jrgensen1 Sizing of Safety Valves Using ANSYS
T. Hhne3
CFX-Flo
1
Technisches Bro, LESER
GmbH & Co. KG, Hamburg,
This work discusses the effect of the degree of fineness of the flow volume discre-
Germany.
tization and that of the turbulence model on the accuracy of reproduction of air
2
Institut fr mass flow rates in two safety valves using the CFD software ANSYS Flo. Calcula-
Strmungsdynamik, tions show that the degree of fineness of the discretization is the decisive factor
TU Hamburg-Harburg, affecting the exactness of the calculations and that the best reproduction is
Hamburg, Germany. achieved with grids where at least two cells are built on the smallest edge. The se-
3 lection of the turbulence model has by far in comparison a lower impact; how-
Institut fr
Sicherheitsforschung, ever, the best accuracy is obtained using the standard k-x model and the SST
Forschungszentrum Dresden- modification of Menter.
Rossendorf, Dresden,
Germany. Keywords: CFD, Safety valves
Received: October 15, 2008; accepted: November 05, 2008
DOI: 10.1002/ceat.200800530

1 Introduction and Purpose by means of computational techniques requires a deep back-

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a common numeri-
cal tool to visualize complex flows like those in safety valves.
The principle behind the simulations is that the flow volume
can be discretized in very small elements where the conserva-
tion laws of fluid mechanics are applied. The integration of the
conservation equations in each element generates rests, which
are minimized by the solving algorithm in an iterative proce-
dure by recalculating them at each step with the actual distri-
butions of the flow variables. The numerical solution is as-
sumed to be that distribution, where all rests are below a
certain threshold. The duration of the calculations and the ac-
curacy of the numerical solution depend strongly on several
factors, among others on the discretization of the flow volume
and the selection of the turbulence model.
This work discusses the influence of both factors on the re-
production of air mass flow rates in safety valves. The final
goal of this research is to find out if some general trends can
be identified, which can be imposed a priori into the CFD set-
up. A systematic preparation of the input file for new calcula-
tions on the base of the evinced trends should lead to effective
time savings by avoiding costly trial and error test routines. If
the computational solution using this systematic approach re-
sults in a good reproduction of the measurements, the product
development using CFD brings effective cost savings due to
the minimization of the necessary tests with prototypes at the
test facility. However, the optimization of untested prototypes
with a hexahedral grid of one million elements and the shear
Correspondence: D. Moncalvo (moncalvo.d@leser.com), Technisches
Bro, LESER GmbH & Co. KG, Wendenstrasse 133-135, D-20537
Hamburg, Germany.
ground in fluid mechanics and thermodynamics as well as en-
gineering common sense.
2 State of the Art
In the following the most recent researches on CFD calcula-
tions in safety valves are presented for analysis. Unfortunately,
only few of those, which have been carried out in the industry,
like that of Darby and Molavi [1] or Fllmer and Schnettler
[2] have been published and most of the available studies come
from academic or similar research institutions. Among them,
Zahariev [3] analyzed the effect of the disk geometry and that
of the disk lift on the air flow but he lacked measurements to
validate his results. Beinert [4] compared the estimations of
the fluid force on the valve disk, calculated using several CFD
packages, against the measurements given by the manufac-
turer. He obtained a very high accuracy after a calculation time
of 7 h with a grid of 2.6 million hexahedral elements. He dis-
cussed as well the accuracy of CFD softwares to estimate the
mass flow rates and the flow coefficient Kv of control valves for
several forms of the seating cone but unfortunately, he did not
extend this study to safety valves. In this concern, Hhne et al.
[5, 6] recently calculated the mass flow rates of air, water, and
viscous syrup in a safety valve LESER Type 441 DN 25/40 and
they compared the calculations against measurements from
the TU Hamburg-Harburg. They obtained an adequate ap-
proximation of the measured mass flow rates of air and water
stress transport (SST) turbulence model.
From the analysis of the literature sources it is clear that
CFD calculations may deliver accurate reproductions of the air

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248 D. Moncalvo et al.
flows in safety valves. However, a detailed description of the
flow volume discretization or some reason for the choice of
the turbulence model is not often explicated. In particular, for
new CFD users it would be interesting to discuss the impact of
these assumptions on the reproduction of the measurements.
3 Approach
The impact of the fineness of the flow volume discretization in
the reproduction of air mass flow rates in the safety valves
Type 441 DN 25/40 and Type 459 DN 15/25 is discussed here
at first. From the sectional views in Fig. 1 the vertical symme-
try of the flow volume is clearly recognizable in both valves but
nevertheless they have been first entirely imported in the grid
generator so to avoid the a priori assumption of flow symme-
try. Three nets have been generated and distinguished in order
of increasing amount of elements into coarse, fine, and very
fine. From Tab. 1 it can be seen that the largest tetrahedrons
with a maximum side length of 4 mm are contained in the
coarse grid. The two fine grids have a maximum element side
length of 2 mm but different triangular discretizations at the
walls. All grids have three layers of prisms with a height of
0.3 mm along the metal walls. The calculations adopt the shear
stress transport turbulence model and terminate when the root
mean square errors of the velocity components and pressure
are below 104 (The inlet mass flow rate calculated with the
coarse and the fine grids do not reach an asymptotic value
with this convergence criterion. For this purpose, a stricter
condition is imposed there that convergence is reached when
the maximal residuals of all flow variables are below 103).
Figure 1. Sectional view of the safety valves LESER Type 441 DN 25/40 (left) and
Type 459 DN 15/25 (right).
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Chem. Eng. Technol. 2009, 32, No. 2, 247251
Table 1. Size of the elements in the grids for the different discre-
tizations of the flow volume.
Grid size Max. length of Length of triangular Height of the
tetrahedron edge face elements prismatic layers
[mm] [mm] [mm]
Min Max
Coarse 4 2 4 0.3
Fine 2 1 2 0.3
Very fine 2 0.5 1 0.3
The effect of the turbulence model in the reproduction of
the measurements is analyzed with the grids, which show the
highest exactness with the SST model. In the case that more or
all grids show with the SST model an uncertainty of less than
2 %, the finer or eventually the finest grid is selected for the
calculations with the k-e, k-x, and the Reynolds stress models.
The criterion for convergence is again that the root mean
square error of the flow variables sinks below 104.
The combination of turbulence model and discretization fi-
neness, which permits a fast convergence and an adequate re-
production of the flow rates at low relieving pressures, is ap-
plied to evaluate the exactness of the numerical calculations,
when the safety valve inlet pressure is increased. In the case a
modification in the gas behavior in function of temperature
and pressure is considered, the equations of state for air in
CFX are the constant property assumption, the ideal gas mod-
el, and the low-pressure (LP) Redlich-Kwong equation. The
constant-property gas model is a priori discarded,
since it unrealistically assumes air to be incompres-
sible between relieving and back pressure. The
ideal gas model is well known from thermody-
namics and it is here considered with the addi-
tional option of constant specific heats. The Red-
lich-Kwong model in CFX is based on the
modification of Aungier [7] with the additional as-
sumption of a polynomial dependence of the spe-
cific heats on temperature. Since air is no pure gas,
it is here imposed to be an ideal mixture of 79 %
nitrogen and 21 % oxygen.
All calculations assume steady-state, adiabatic
flows with no-slip at the walls. The output is the
calculation of the air mass flow rates from the
measurement of the relieving temperature and
pressure as well as that of the back pressure, which
are respectively introduced in the input file as inlet
stagnation temperature and pressure as well as out-
let static pressure.
4 Experimental Input
The input data come from old measurements at
the test facility of LESER GmbH & Co. KG. The air
mass flow rates are calculated according to ISO
5167-2 [8] from the measurement of the tempera-
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Chem. Eng. Technol. 2009, 32, No. 2, 247251 Safety valves 249

ture and that of the pressure difference at the extremes of a cal-
ibrated orifice. Regular calibration routines show a measure-
ment error of 2 %.
The relieving pressures and temperatures as well as the back
pressure of the considered measurements are reported in Tab.
2. The lowest relieving pressures under consideration are close
to the mean value of 4.5 0.15 bar, with a relieving tempera-
ture of either 15.2 C or 21.6 C. The back pressure is ambient
pressure in both cases. Under these conditions air can be treat-
ed as an ideal gas [9]. A possible effect of the real gas behavior
is analyzed with measurements in the safety valve Type 459
DN 15/25 for relieving pressures between 4.4 and 35.2 bar.
Table 2. Relieving pressure, temperature, and back pressure for
the selected measurements.
Safety valve Safety valve
Type 441 DN 25/40 Type 459 DN 15/25
with a higher density of elements and results in an improved
reproduction accuracy of all grids within 11 and 15%. The very
fine grid from this semi-volume discretization will be used to
assess the influence of the turbulence model.
In the safety valve Type 459 DN 15/25 the exactness of the
reproduction worsens with the degree of discretization of the
whole flow volume, from less than 1 % for the coarse grid to
more than 7 % for the very fine one (Tab. 4). The discretiza-
tion of semi-volume results in a slight worsening in the accu-
racy of the coarse and in that of the fine grid but in an im-
provement of that of the very fine discretization, where the
error is reduced to less than 6 %. The fine grid from the semi-
volume discretization is selected for the successive study.
Table 4. Reproduction accuracy of the CFD calculation of the air
mass flow rate in the safety valve Type 459 DN 15/25 at a reliev-
ing pressure of 4.4 bar in order of increasing grid fineness for
the discretization of the entire or just the half flow volume.

Relieving pressure [bar] 4.6 4.435.2 Type 459 DN 15/25 Entire volume Semi-volume
discretization discretization
Back pressure [bar] 1 1
Grid size Mass flow Error Mass flow Error
Relieving temperature [C] 21.6 15.215.5 [kg/s] [%] [kg/s] [%]

Measurement 0.1241
4.4 bar
5 Results Coarse 0.1229 0.9 0.1225 1.3

The effect of the degree of flow volume discretization on the Fine 0.1275 2.3 0.1278 3.0
calculation of the flow capacity in the safety valve Type 441 Very fine 0.1330 7.2 0.1314 5.9
DN 25/40 is shown in Tab. 3. From this table it can be seen
that the very fine grid has the best accuracy in the reproduc-
tion of the measured mass flow, even if still with an excess of From these results no immediate conclusion on the effect of
15 %. In an attempt to improve the accuracy, the assumption the discretization can be derived. In order to find some expla-
of flow symmetry is introduced. By halving the flow volume, nation, ad-hoc discretizations are imposed in the regions with
all internal surfaces of the disk, which were previously pre- high flow losses or with large vortices. In safety valves these are
vented from direct selection by mouse clicks, can be now visu- principally the region of the valve body around the disk and
alized and if necessary ad hoc discretized (The mass flow rate that between the disk and the valve seat. For ease of under-
for the safety valve, using the half or semi-volume discretiza- standing, considering the huge amount of elements to be gen-
tion, is the double of that resulting from the numerical calcula- erated, these extremely fine grids are called XL and XXL to dis-
tions with the half flow volume). This feature presents the ad- tinguish them from the previous very fine discretization,
vantage of extremely fine discretizations of the flow volume named L (Tab. 5). In particular, the XXL grid is designed such
that the smallest edge of the flow volume must ground at least
Table 3. Reproduction accuracy of the CFD calculation of the air
mass flow rate in the safety valve Type 441 DN 25/40 at the re- Table 5. Sizes of the elements in the extremely fine grids of the
lieving pressure of 4.6 bar in order of increasing grid fineness for semi-volume discretization.
the discretization of the entire or just the half flow volume.
Grid size Max. length Length of triangular Height of
Type 441 DN 25/40 Entire volume Semi-volume of tetrahedron face elements the prismatic
discretization discretization edge [mm] layers
[mm] [mm]
Grid size Mass flow Error Mass flow Error
[kg/s] [%] [kg/s] [%] Min Max

Measurement 0.343 Very fine (L) 2 0.5 1 0.3

4.6 bar
Extremely fine 1 0.5 1 0.3
Coarse 0.433 26.2 0.392 14.2 (XL)

Fine 0.412 20.1 0.395 15.0 Even finer (XXL) 1 0.2 0.5 (Type 459) 0.3

Very fine 0.392 14.2 0.382 11.4 1 (Type 441)

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250 D. Moncalvo et al. Chem. Eng. Technol. 2009, 32, No. 2, 247251

Table 6. Reproduction accuracy of the CFD calculation of the air mass flow rate In relation to the choice of the turbulence mod-
in the safety valves Type 441 DN 25/40 and Type 459 DN 15/25 in order of in- els, the adoption of the complex Reynolds stress
creasing grid fineness using the semi-volume discretization. model according to Tab. 7 brings no substantial
improvement in the reproduction of the measured
Semi-volume Type 441 DN 25/40 Type 459 DN 15/25
discretization
mass flow rates against the simpler two-equation
models, like k-e or k-x. Indeed, a slight improve-
Grid size Mass flow Error Mass flow Error ment in the measurement accuracy may eventually
[kg/s] [%] [kg/s] [%] be obtained by replacing the SST model of Menter
Measurement 0.343 0.1241 [10] with the standard k-x for both measurements
4.4 bar at the relieving pressure of 3.4 bar. The results in
Tab. 8 for higher relieving pressures using the fine
Very fine (L) 0.3820 11.38 0.1314 5.88
grid discretization of the entire valve and the k-x
Extremely fine (XL) 0.3803 10.87 0.1302 4.90 model show that the ideal gas model delivers good
Even finer (XXL) 0.3761 9.66 0.1232 0.76
estimations of the mass flow rate up to a pressure
of 10 bar but also that the estimation error in-
creases up to 6.6 % for a relieving pressure of
35.2 bar. The assumption that air is an ideal mix-
Table 7. Reproduction accuracy of the CFD calculation of the air mass flow rate ture of oxygen and nitrogen behaving like Redlich-
in the safety valves Type 441 DN 25/40 and Type 459 DN 15/25 at a relieving Kwong gases brings no improvement of the repro-
pressure of 4.5 0.15 bar for several turbulence models using the semi-volume duction accuracy at any pressure. From Tab. 9 it
discretization. can be seen that the reproduction accuracy using
the XXL semi-volume discretization and the SST
Semi-volume Type 441 DN 25/40 Type 459 DN 15/25
model improves sensibly at any relieving pressure,
discretization
Mass flow Error Mass flow Error in particular at 35.2 bar the divergence between
[kg/s] [%] [kg/s] [%] the calculated and the measured mass flow rates is
Measurement 0.343 0.1241 just of 2.9 %.

SST 0.382 11.38 0.1278 3.02

k-e 0.386 12.48 0.1279 3.13 6 Conclusions
k-x 0.382 11.56 0.1276 2.90 The application of computational fluid dynamics
Reynolds stress 0.384 11.98 0.1285 3.52 to safety valves has been already tested in the scien-
tific literature; nevertheless, the effect of the fine-
ness of the flow volume discretization and that of
the turbulence model on the accuracy of the results
Table 8. Reproduction accuracy of the CFD calculation of the air mass flow rate have been not yet discussed. Own calculations
in the safety valve Type 459 DN 15/25 for relieving pressures between 4.4 and show that the grid discretization is decisive for a
35.2 bar using the ideal and the Redlich-Kwong gas models, the discretization of
good accuracy in the reproduction of air mass flow
the whole flow volume, and the k-x turbulence model.
rates in two small safety valves. A threshold in the
Safety valve Type 459 DN 15/25 Ideal gas Redlich-Kwong fineness of the discretization for both valves is
(Entire flow volume, k-x turb. model) identified as that having at least two elements on
the smallest edge of the flow volume. This discreti-
Pressure Measured mass Mass flow Error Mass flow Error
zation coupled with the SST turbulence model of
[bar] flow rate [kg/s] rate [kg/s] [%] rate [kg/s] [%]
Menter permits an accurate reproduction of the se-
4.4 0.1241 0.1275 2.3 0.1282 3.3 lected mass flow rates. The selection of other tur-
11 0.3180 0.3229 1.5 0.3229 1.5
bulence models has in comparison by far a low im-
pact on the accuracy; nevertheless, the Omega-
35.2 0.9689 1.0326 6.6 1.0434 7.7 based SST and the standard k-x model are slightly
better than the others. The reproduction of the
mass flow rates at higher pressures shows again
that using the already announced discretization
two elements. Tab. 6 shows that in both safety valves the incre- with at least two elements at any edge a very accurate repro-
ment in the grid fineness in the regions of high flow losses and duction of the measurements is obtained. Future work in-
large vortices brings the highest reproduction accuracy for cludes the possibility of a generalization of the effect of the
both valves. grid discretization to other valve sizes and types.

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Chem. Eng. Technol. 2009, 32, No. 2, 247251 Safety valves 251

Table 9. Reproduction accuracy of the CFD calculation of the air References

mass flow rate in the safety valve Type 459 DN 15/25 for reliev-
ing pressures between 4.4 and 35.2 bar using the ideal gas
[1] R. Darby, K. Molavi, Proc. Safety Prog. 1997, 16 (2), 80.
model, the semi-volume discretization, and the SST turbulence
model. [2] B. Fllmer, A. Schnettler, Valve World 2003, 10, 39.
[3] T. Zahariev, Ph.D. Thesis, Otto-von-Guericke University,
Safety valve Type 459 DN 15/25 Ideal gas Magdeburg 2001.
[4] C. Beinert, Ph.D. Thesis, TU Darmstadt 2007.
(Semi-volume, SST turb. model)
[5] T. Hhne, D. Moncalvo, Jahrestreffen der Fachausschsse
Pressure [bar] Measured mass flow Mass flow rate Error Computational Fluid Dynamics, Gasreiningung und Mecha-
rate [kg/s] [kg/s] nische Flssigkeitsabtrennung, Wrzburg, Germany 2008.
[%]
[6] T. Hhne, D. Moncalvo, L. Friedel, Jahrestagung Kerntechnik
4.4 0.1241 0.1232 0.74 2008, Hamburg, Germany 2008.
11 0.3180 0.3124 1.74 [7] R. H. Aungier, J. Fluids Eng. 1995, 117, 277.
[8] DIN EN ISO 5167-2, Beuth Verlag, Berlin 2004.
35.2 0.9689 0.9974 2.94 [9] VDI Wrmeatlas, Springer, Berlin 2008.
[10] F. R. Menter, AIAA J. 1994, 32 (8), 1598.

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