Dealing with long piping or large pipelines? Beware of Water Hammer

Hi

Today, I would like to share an important engineering concept that could have significant implications for the safety and reliability of your fluid transport operations: water hammer.

Water hammer is considered one of the most dangerous phenomena that can cause catastrophic overpressure in fluid systems. Imagine a pump with a long pipeline leading to a tank, with a shutdown valve at the tank inlet. When that valve suddenly closes, the flowing liquid doesn't like to stop all at once.

💥This causes a shockwave that travels back through the pipe, colliding with the inlet fluid wave. This water hammer phenomenon is common in long pipelines where the pump responds slowly to changes.

The dangers of water hammer are severe:

1. It can generate overpressures much higher than the pump's shutoff pressure.
2. The overpressure is often localized, making specific pipe sections more susceptible to damage.
3. Water hammer occurs instantaneously, leaving little time for conventional protection methods to react.

Simply installing shutdown protection or a pressure safety valve is not enough. Thorough dynamic simulation is required to evaluate the severity of water hammer scenarios and determine the appropriate mitigation strategies.

Two main approaches can protect your equipment from water hammer:

1. Use a shutdown valve with a much slower closure rate, giving the flow time to stop smoothly without causing a shockwave. This is the cheapest solution
2. Use fast-acting surge relief valves that can quickly release fluid to another location, preventing the overpressure. However this may lead to a new storage system to receive the surge inventory.
3. Consider the pipeline design pressure to be equal to the calculated maximum pressure. This may not always be feasible if there is a large gap between the pump shutoff pressure and the calculated surge pressure.

Early identification of water hammer risks and proactive implementation of the right protection measures are crucial to avoiding catastrophic equipment failures and ensuring the safe operation of your fluid transport systems.

I'd be happy to discuss this issue further and explore ways we can work together to assess and address water hammer threats in your operations. Please don't hesitate to reach out.

Regards

Mohamad

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