OPTIMIZATION OF BUTTERFLY VALVE DESIGN USING

COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

Accurate butterfly valve performance information is necessary to

ensure the safe operation of nuclear and non-nuclear power plants, as well as
chemical and other industrial plants. As shutoff valve or throttling valves
(for flow or pressure control), the higher performance and the better
precision of butterfly valves are required.

Performance of valves under various operating conditions is generally

obtained through an experimental testing of prototype or scaled valves. The
availability of performance parameters for compressible flow is limited, and
experimental testing can be cost prohibitive. In this case the computational
fluid Dynamics analysis provides better results. The capability of using
computational fluid dynamics is a test to determine its viability for
determining its performance parameters

In this project butterfly valves of various types viz. a) Symmetric disc

b) Prismatic disc c) Conical disc d) Radial disc would be modeled. The flow
field, resultant force on these disc shapes would be studied computationally
at various valve opening positions (20 deg, 40 deg, and 60 deg) over a range
of operating pressures. The range of pressure ratios was chosen to include
subsonic and supersonic flow states. A comprehensive study would be made
with performance parameters for optimizing the design of valve.