A control valve for fluid-load oscillation inhibiting and energy harvesting

Control valves are extensively utilized in the equipment of nuclear power plants. Under specific operational conditions, fluid oscillation occurs within the valve, resulting in sudden fluid loads on the valve core, which may lead to valve jamming and even stem breakage. To address this problem, an innovative control valve is designed to inhibit the fluid oscillation and harvest the energy typically dissipated during the fluid oscillation process. A piston component is situated within the valve body to mitigate inlet fluid oscillation of the valve and harness a portion of the oscillation energy that would otherwise be dissipated, and a systematic analysis of the factors affecting the valve's suppression of fluid oscillation and capturing energy in this valve is presented. The results show that the innovative control valve can inhibit fluid oscillation and harvest energy from the fluid oscillation process in the control valve. The proposed method does not affect the regulating ability of the control valve, and it can obviously eliminate or reduce the fluid load of the oscillation on the plug of the control valve, reduces the occurrence of vortices inside the valve. which helps to address the problem that the actuator of the valve is prone to abnormal shutdown when the fluid controlled by the control valve is unstable and violent oscillation.