Computational Analysis on the Flow Behavior and Performance Evaluation of Single and Double Offset Butterfly Valves

Abstract

Valves are the key components for the safety of the professionals working on the machineries involved in the functioning of any industry. There are various sectors in which machinery like pump, turbines, and boilers are working in which flow and pressure regulations are the parameters to be controlled for their efficient and safe performance. Butterfly valves are one of the tools which implement the flow regulating mechanism to manage the flow of certain incompressible and compressible fluids. Butterfly valves are a light weight, low cost, and easily operateable. It is a quarter turn valve, includes a disk that rotates by right angle (90^∘) to regulate the flow of fluids. The foremost purpose of this study is to analyze the flow behavior of a butterfly valve. CFD analysis using ANSYS Fluent has been carried out in this work to compute various performance parameters responsible for characterization of a butterfly valve. In this present study, simulation of a 2.9 m butterfly valve has been carried out at 0.1 m single offset and 0.1 m double offset for discharge of 21.2 m³/s. Based on the various literature surveys, eight different valve opening positions 20^∘, 30^∘, 40^∘, 50^∘, 60^∘, 70^∘, 80^∘, and 90^∘ were selected. CFD analysis provided better interpretations for flow behavior and performance parameters. The study concluded that flow coefficient had a major dependency on opening angle than offset. In comparison to 0.1 m single offset, the double offset have a better characteristic.