Session S08 - Inverse Problems and Applications

Thursday, July 15, 17:00 ~ 17:30 UTC-3

Characterization of Pipelines During Flow Transients

HELCIO ORLANDE

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politécnica/COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, Brazil   -   This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In nowadays complex hydraulic systems, transients in pumps and valves may induce significant variations in pressures and flow rates. For example, if the liquid velocity is suddenly reduced by the closure of a valve, pressure waves with large magnitudes and large velocities propagate through the pipelines. Such a phenomenon is known as water hammer and can seriously affect the pipeline integrity. This work deals with the estimation of parameters of a water hammer model, with focus on a transient friction factor and an empirical parameter related to the pipeline elasticity. The hyperbolic water hammer model was solved with a TVD (Total Variation Diminishing) version of the WAF (Weighted Average Flux) finite volume scheme. Pressure and flow rate measurements, taken near the inlet and the outlet of a hydraulic circuit, were used for the solution of the parameter estimation problem. A recent parallel computation version of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm was applied for the parameter estimation.

Joint work with Raphael C. Carvalho (COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ), Marcelo J. Colaço (Politécnica/COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ) and Italo M. Madeira (CENPES Research and Development Center, PETROBRAS).

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