NAVIER-STOKES FLOW-FIELD ANALYSIS OF COMPRESSIBLE FLOW IN A HIGH-PRESSURE SAFETY RELIEF VALVE

The objective of this study is to investigate the complex three-dimens ional flow held of an oxygen safety pressure relieve valve during an i ncident, with a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. Specifica lly, the analysis will. provide a flow pattern that would lead to the explanation of the eventual erosion pattern of the hardware, so as to combine it with other findings to piece together a most likely scenari o for the investigation. The CFD model is a pressure-based solver. An adaptive upwind difference scheme is employed for the spatial discreti zation, and a predictor, multiple corrector method is used for the vel ocity-pressure coupling. The computational result indicated vortices f ormation near the opening of the valve which matched the erosion patte rn of the damaged hardware.