FLUID AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF A LARGE DIAMETER BUTTERFLY VALVE

Abstract

A butterfly valve of large diameter is commonly used as control equipments in applications where the inlet velocity is fast and the pressure is relatively high. Because the size of the valve is too large, it's too difficult to conduct testing experiment in a laboratory. In this paper, the numerical simulation using commercial package-CFX and ANSYS was conducted. In order to perform fluid analysis and structural analysis perfectly, large valve models are generated in three dimensions without much simplification. The result of fluid analysis is imported to structure analysis as a boundary condition. In addition, to describe the flow patterns and to measure the performance when valve are opened for various angles, the verification of the performance whether the valve could work safely at these different conditions or not was conducted. Fortunately, the result shows that the valve is safe in a given inlet velocity of 3 m/s, and it's not necessary to be strengthened anywhere. In the future, the shape of valve disc can be optimized to reduce the weight, and also to make the flow coefficient be closer to the suggested level.