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Critical air/water blow-down in safety valves at low qualities
1Technisches Büro, LESER GmbH & Co., KG, Wendenstrasse 133-135, 20537 Hamburg, Germany. moncalvo.davide@vdi.de
Abstract:
Critical air/water blow-downs in safety valves for qualities from 0.01 to 0.113 and mass flow rates from 1.5 up to 4.3 kg/s have been observed in our test facility. These critical blow-downs are characterized by a large void fraction and by an intense mixing of the phases both in the valve body and in the outlet pipe. A qualitative estimation of the flow pattern in the outlet pipe using the map of Taitel and Dukler suggests that these air/water flows are intermittent flows--presumably slug flows--evolving to annular flows for qualities above 0.1. Intermittent flows are also predicted for critical air/water and air/glycerine flows taken from the literature for the same safety valve at slightly larger relieving pressures.
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