Characteristic Research Of Globe Regulator Valve By Means Of 3-D Simulation And Experimentation

Ball valve is designed to regulate a certain flux according to different openings based on the system's requirements in various industries. In the aerospace industry, the ball valve has high performance and works in extraordinary adverse working conditions. The study on the flow field distribution, the flow coefficient and the torque characteristics of the ball valve has long been focused on. It is effective to make numerical simulation on the flow field of ball valve in order to design a valve with high accuracy as well as cut off a substantial amount of testing expenditure.A ball valve of a liquid rocket engine are used as an example to establish the three-dimensional mathematical models for steady state conditions, proceed simulating computation and finally compare computing results with the test results to verify the mathematical models.The paper studies one-dimensional flow coefficient and torque characteristics of the ball valve according to the classical formula and drag index k measurement, proceeds the initial curves of computing results. The results lay a foundation for the comparative analysis of the succeeding three-dimensional calculation.Based on the principal theories on turbulence, the commercially available CFD code, FLUENT, is used. The mathematical models of the flow field for steady state conditions are established and an analysis has been made on the conditions of invariable flux and variable flux. The curve of the flow coefficientμF is obtained and it changes with the opening of the ball valve. The analytic result of flow coefficient offers an important parameter to calculate the flux and regulate the mixture ratio of rocket engine. In addition, the simulated data are used to describe the torque characteristic which is in turn used to design the framework of air control devices, verify the intensity, optimize the structure parameters, and etc. At the same time, the detailed internal flow field distribution of the ball valve is obtained. The further analysis demonstrates the rules of pressure dissipation, vortex distribution, percent characteristic and torque inverse proportion under different working conditions. The conclusion which is in turn used to analyze the influence of the working behavior of ball valve has a significant meaning of guidance to the engineering design.Finally, the hydraulic experimentations are used to analyze the flow coefficient and torque behaviors of the ball valve. The plan, experimental system, metrical apparatus and operational process are introduced. In order to verify the feasibility of the three-dimensional simulating calculation, the one-dimensional computing results and the numerical simulation results are compared with the test results. At last the paper gives a summary to the advantages of the numerical three-dimensional simulation.