Modeling of Check Valve Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

When a check valve closes, its disc slams on the valve seat, this slam may cause many problems like noise, vibration and seat wear. The main reason of slam problem is the great hydrodynamic force acting on the valve disc near and at closing position. In order to reduce the impact force between the valve disc and its seat when closing, some modifications are applied to the valve disc geometry to reduce the drag force acting on it by the system moving back flow and consequently decrease the impact force. The fluid flow across original and modified valve discs during closing mode are modeled using CFD package:"SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation, SWFS" at different closing angles till closing position. The results of SWFS are validated by comparing with other CFD simulations, where SWFS results lies between the other results. Comparison between the results of original and the modified valve disc models shows that the hydrodynamic force acting on the modified valve disc is reduced, thus the slam force between the disc and the seat is also reduced. The modified valve disc shows a good performance concerning valve flow coefficient at fully open position with reduction of force acting of valve disc near closing position by about 40%, when compared to the original valve disc.