BOSfluids

Tutorial
Safety relief valve
The Safety relief valve tutorial describes the theory and modeling
process of a safety relief valve. It covers the algorithm BOSfluids

uses to model the valve and a worked out example of how to include
a safety relief valve in a system.
BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
Copyright Dynaflow Research Group. Page 1 of 9
1. INTRODUCTION
A safety relief valve is used to control the pressure within a vessel or piping system. For the
usual high-lift relief valves, the lift is greater than one-fourth the nozzle diameter, which
results in a flow area between the nozzle and the valve disk greater than the nozzle area.
Liquid relief valves reach their rated capacity at 25% overpressure. Overpressure is the
pressure increase over the set pressure.
Liquid relief valves rise slowly as the pressure increases, and is different from a safety valve
which attains the rated lift with little overpressure.
Safety valves are classified as conventional or balanced, depending on the effect of back
pressure on their performance.
1.1. Flow Capacity theory
This section discusses the flow theory of safety relief valves, and how BOSfluids

mathematically models the valve.
On discharge of a safety relief valve, the flow in the throat of the nozzle reaches a constant
value corresponding to the critical flow pressure, so that, under adiabatic flow conditions,
the flow through a safety relief valve is directly proportional to the absolute upstream
pressure. The gas discharge is evaluated by the formula:
=
1

0.5

Where

W = flow rate through the valve.
C = coefficient determined by the ratio of the specific heats.
K = coefficient of discharge for the valve.
A = effective discharge area of the valve.
P1 = upstream absolute pressure. Usually the set pressure multiplied by 1.10 or 1.20
depending on the permissible overpressure plus the atmospheric pressure.
M = molecular weight of the gas or vapour.
Z = compressibility factor. If not available (for a gas), a value of 1.0 is conservatively used.
T = absolute temperature of the inlet vapour.

BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
Page 2 of 9 Copyright Dynaflow Research Group.
The critical flow pressure PCF in absolute units can be estimated by the following perfect gas
relationship:

1
=
2
[ +1]

1

Where
=
If the downstream pressure of the valve exceeds PCR, then flow will be restricted and a
readjustment will be needed. BOSfluids

can be used in the steady state to determine the

pressure drop from the vessel or process line connection to the valve.
For balanced type safety valves where the back pressure is isolated from the valve, the
BOSfluids

model should include an intermediate Fix Pressure at the downstream side of the
PSV to keep the backpressure on the valve constant. The pressure downstream of the safety
valve will need to be checked in this unusual situation. Pressures downstream of a choked
safety valve can be checked against the B31.1 II-2.2.1(1) equation.
The set pressure is the pressure where the valve just begins to open. The full flow, rated or
opening pressure, is the pressure where the rated flow is established. This is a function of
the manufacturers design, but typically for gases the set and opening pressure difference is
between 3 and 5%, and for liquids it is around 10%. Reseat pressure differences range from
6 to 20%.
The user does not require to enter mass and stiffness for the valve in BOSfluids

, if the
response time is based on the rate of pressure rise. When the response time of the valve may
be important with respect to the response time of the event, (usually on the order of 10-to-
20ms or less), then the user should enter the mass and stiffness associated with the valve.
Simulations can be performed with the valve model in BOSfluids

to approximate the
manufacturers test stand if approximate opening times are known.
1.2. Basic BOSfluids

algorithm modelling safety relief valve

The bore is taken from the valve data sheet. This should be input by the user.
The maximum lift at the rated flow is estimated from:
= 0.27
The displacement of the valve disk is found from:
= ()()
1

Where
BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
Copyright Dynaflow Research Group. Page 3 of 9
=
=

@100%

=
=
The critical damping is calculated by
= (2)[()()]
0.5

= ()( )
If the mass, damping or stiffness values are entered then the value of tau is found so that the
head drop across the valve is equal to:
()() +()() +

()

2
[()
2
]
+

where M is the mass of the disk, (a) is the acceleration of the disk, (damp) is the entered
damping, (K) is the stiffness, Q is the flow, (g) is the acceleration due to gravity, (Area) is the
throat area of the valve, and Puse is the set pressure if the valve is opening and the reseat
pressure if the valve is closing.
If the user does not enter a value for either of the mass, stiffness or damping, then the head
loss over the valve is between the set and full flow, or reseat and full flow pressure
depending on the direction of valve movement.
The calculated flowrate through the valve is also limited by the sonic velocity in the fluid.
A schematic of the basic relief model is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 | Schematic of a basic relief valve
BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
Page 4 of 9 Copyright Dynaflow Research Group.
2. EXAMPLE-TANK FILL
2.1. Introduction

Figure 2 | Node description of model
The example will describe the process of filling a tank while a shutoff valve is closing,
causing the flow to be diverted through the safety relief valve. The tank elevation is 35ft
which converts into a static pressure at node 5 of 15.16 psig. The quick closure shutoff valve
between nodes 10 and 15 can be closed in one second. When the shutoff valve closes and the
pressure builds up sufficiently, the relief valve will lift at 250 psi. Its rated opening pressure
(full flow pressure) is 315 psi, and the reseat pressure on closing is 225 psi. Therefore the
question is: When the Shutoff valve shuts, will the relief valve adequately redistribute the flow. A
Long Pipe boundary condition will be used at node 25 with the rated flow of 3.3 ft
3
/sec. The
Long Pipe boundary will prevent reflections and will support any pressure or flow presented
to it downstream. This will represent a long incoming pipeline.
2.2. Building the model and boundary condition specification
Start the BOSfluids

software and create a new model using the information from Figure 2
and Table 1 to define all the elements.
All surface roughness is equal to 0,0019685 inch. Define all boundary conditions in the
model.
The valve at 10-to-15 will be closed in one second (starting after 1 second and ending after 2
seconds) during the transient simulation. As a first pass, specify the simulation time of 4.0
seconds to determine if a steady state condition is reached. Ensure that transient CAP model
is selected in the model analysis type (void fraction 5.56e-06) and that maximum pressure
trapping is switched off.
BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
Copyright Dynaflow Research Group. Page 5 of 9

Table 1 | Element parameters
Element Description Length
Remarks
5-10 10,75in diameter 0,625 inch thickness, X-dim : -36 in
Node 5 : Fixed Pressure
15.16 psig
10-15
Valve, Valve bore 8,325, discharge
coefficient 0,5, closure exponent 0.23
X-dim : -15 in Transient valve closure
15-20 10,75in diameter 0,625 inch thickness, X-dim : -68 in
20-25 10,75in diameter 0,625 inch thickness, X-dim : -2400 in
Node 25 : Long pipe, fix flow
rate of 3.3cu.ft/sec
20-30 8,625in diameter 0,5 inch thickness, Y-dim : 51 in
30-35
Relief Valve, valve bore 4,2126,
discharge coefficient 0,632,
X-dim : -14 in, Y-dim : 14 in Reseat pressure =225 psig
35-40 10,75in diameter 0,625 inch thickness, X-dim : -180 in
40-45 10,75in diameter 0,625 inch thickness, Y-dim : -48 in Fixed pressure 0 psig

2.3. Results and Discussion
Let us first consider the pressure at node 20 shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 | Transient pressure profile at node 20
The pressure rises just above the required 250 psi to open the valve. The increased pressure
supports the necessary flow rate specified at node 25.
BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
Page 6 of 9 Copyright Dynaflow Research Group.
The flow rate through the relief valve is plotted in 4.

Figure 4 | Transient flow rate profile through pressure relief valve
Even though the flow during steady state condition was 3.3 ft
3
/sec the flow through the
relief valve is only 1.45 ft
3
/sec as the flow through the inlet line from 25 is stalled. The flow
rate at 25 is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 | Transient flow rate profile at node 25 (Note all negative delivery flows shown)
The flow at 25 is reduced when the shutoff valve is closed and the pressure rises, and then
begins to recover. The pressure wave that occurred when the valve closed is still traveling
back through the line looking for a location in the system to reflect, but this will not happen
BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
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with the LONGPIPE boundary condition. The pressure at the long pipe connection, node 25,
is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6 | Transient pressure profile with longpipe boundary condition
Depending on the boundary, the returning pressure wave will either be a rarefaction wave
with an accompanying drop in pressure, or may be a compression wave, with an
accompanying increase in pressure. At a pressure let-down station, the boundary condition
would be more accurately simulated by a fixed flow. To simulate a fixed flow boundary at
node 25, return to BCs and Nodes in the Model tab and modify the boundary condition at
node 25 from Long Pipe to Fixed Flow (3.3 ft
3
/sec). The pressure reflection with a Fix Flow
boundary condition at node 25 is shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7 | Transient pressure profile with fix flow boundary condition
BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
Page 8 of 9 Copyright Dynaflow Research Group.
The Fix Flow boundary condition acts like a closed end that imparts a velocity onto the flow.
Now the full flow rate of 3.3 ft
3
/sec is diverted through the relief valve, while the maximum
pressure at node 20 is still not high for the full flow opening pressure as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8 | Transient pressure profile at node 20 with fix flow boundary condition
What happens if the shutoff valve closes in 0.1 second instead of 1.0 sec? The resulting
pressure at 20 is shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9 | Pressure at node 20 with shutoff valve closing in 0.1 second
BOSfluids Safety Relief Valve
Copyright Dynaflow Research Group. Page 9 of 9
The faster closure time interacts with the Pressure Relief valve that is responding instantly to
the pressure difference across the valve. This causes the pressure to drop below the vapour
pressure at node 30 (the inlet to the relief valve), Vapour bubbles are forming and collapsing
producing pressure spikes. To produce a more meaningful answer in more rapidly acting
cases, a relief valve that is more reluctant to changing state can be introduced. This should
be done by specifying the correct disk mass and relief spring stiffness.