Water Hammer Characteristic of the Pipeline in Ship Pitch Balance System

Abstract

In ship pitch balance system, serious flow impact and water hammer occur because of the turning on and off of valve during the procedure of water-shift. Flow area of the ball valve used most on ship was derived, and mathematical models of pressure lost before and after valve were formulated. Besides, considering the fact of water-shift balance system, an AMESim model was established based on improved traditional throttle model. And the validity of AMESim model was ascertained by comparing simulation results of stable pressure before and after valve with calculated values from mathematical models. Then, with the AMESim model, impact characteristics of water-shift pipeline were investigated when adopting various valve switch rules, length of pipelines before and after valve and using an accumulator in system. From that, methods to reduce pipeline impact were proposed, which make good references for noise control of ship pitch balance system.