Piston-Lift Check Valve Flow Verification Using CFD

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is increasingly being used as a reliable method for determining flow characteristics of a wide range of flow situations. This paper presents an extension of paper PVP2017-66269, “Check Valve Flow and Disk Lift Simulation Using CFD” [1], and utilizes some of the same concepts to characterize flow through piston-lift check valves. The previous example considered a swing check valve involving rotational movement; this example considers a vertical lift piston check valve involving translational movement. Specifically, CFD was used to determine valve flow coefficients (CV) as a function of disk lift position as well as to determine the flow rate required to achieve full open or predict intermediate disk lift positions. The CFX application, which is part of the ANSYS suite of finite element software, was used to determine the flow characteristics. As presented in PVP2017-66269, balancing flow-induced forces on the check element and considering the disk assembly weight, the valve lift behavior can be predicted. Results from the CFX analysis were compared to recent test results of a skirted disk-piston check valve and previous test results of a standard disk-piston check valve. The results showed good agreement in most cases. This validates that flow characteristics across valves with different types of check elements at different disk lift positions can be reliably predicted using CFD analysis. It is important to note that while the test results and CFD analysis showed good agreement, it was vital that actual testing be performed in order to validate the approach. This follows the recommendation outlined in the previous paper.