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Sealed Hydropneumatics Tank Initial Gas Volume

I am modeling a pump trip event in HAMMER. I have a sealed hydroneumatic tank with a total volume of 5,000 gallons and have set the initial gas volume to 2,500 gallons. 

My pump trip occurs after 20 seconds into the simulation. As a result, I expect my gas volume in the tank to be 2,500 gallons within first 20 seconds when nothing has happened yet. However, the gas volume shows an upward trend before pump trip.

To see if the initial gas volume would stabilize in the absence of any event (such as a pump trip), I ran the model for 300 seconds with no pump trip (or any other event). The initial gas volume in the tank rises during the first 50 seconds of simulation and stabilizes at around 2,800 gallons. 

Why is this happening? I was under the impression that if I set the initial gas volume in a sealed tank, HAMMER would assume that volume is under steady state pressure (whatever it is based on initial conditions since there is no field for me to enter the initial gas pressure the way you can do for a dipping tube).

Parents
  • Hi Parsa,

    The "treat as junction?" property is what tells HAMMER to model a hydropneumatic tank that has already "settled" to steady state conditions (and that the resulting pressure is used in conjunction with the initial has pressure to determine the gas law relationship). Make sure you set that to "true", re-compute initial conditions, then re-compute the transient simulation. You can read more about this in the following related article from our Wiki: Modeling Reference - Hydropneumatic Tanks

    If this does not help, please provide a copy of the model with any special steps needed to reproduce: Sharing Hydraulic Model Files on the OpenFlows Forum

    Also make sure you're on our latest CONNECT Edition release. See more here: Downloading OpenFlows Software


    Regards,

    Jesse Dringoli
    Technical Support Manager, OpenFlows
    Bentley Communities Site Administrator
    Bentley Systems, Inc.

  • Thank you, Jesse. I set the "treat as junction" property to true and re-ran the initial and transient simulations. It still does not start from my initial gas volume. I will provide the model file. I am using CONNECT Edition Update 3.

  • Parsa, also make sure "specify initial conditions" is set to "False" in the transient calculation options, and that the initial conditions calculation is successful, with no red colored messages (such as "network unbalanced"). If you need to provide the model file and you choose to upload it securely, please provide the file name and any steps needed to reproduce.


    Regards,

    Jesse Dringoli
    Technical Support Manager, OpenFlows
    Bentley Communities Site Administrator
    Bentley Systems, Inc.

Reply
  • Parsa, also make sure "specify initial conditions" is set to "False" in the transient calculation options, and that the initial conditions calculation is successful, with no red colored messages (such as "network unbalanced"). If you need to provide the model file and you choose to upload it securely, please provide the file name and any steps needed to reproduce.


    Regards,

    Jesse Dringoli
    Technical Support Manager, OpenFlows
    Bentley Communities Site Administrator
    Bentley Systems, Inc.

Children
  • Hi Jesse. I set "specify initial conditions" to false and it still behaves the same. I will provide the model file. Thank you.

    On a different note, I have a pressure sustaining valve in my model that I want to close when the pressure drops due to pump shutdown. How can I model this behavior? Do I put controls based on upstream pressure or should I make it a modulating valve? 

  • With the calculation option set to False and the "treat as junction" in the tank properties set to True, make sure you populate the "volume of gas (initial)" field in the tank properties. If you need to provide a copy of the model, please be sure to reply and provide the file name and steps to reproduce.

    On a different note, I have a pressure sustaining valve in my model that I want to close when the pressure drops due to pump shutdown. How can I model this behavior? Do I put controls based on upstream pressure or should I make it a modulating valve? 

    If you would like the PSV to automatically close during the transient simulation to maintain the pressure setting, you would use the modulation option (documented here.)

    If you want to manually close it based on something else, you would use the Operating Rule pattern (see this.)


    Regards,

    Jesse Dringoli
    Technical Support Manager, OpenFlows
    Bentley Communities Site Administrator
    Bentley Systems, Inc.

  • Jesse, I uploaded my model to your server.

    The scenario to look at is: SAWWTP(Closed10K)-HP(DT2.5K)-EV(Bladder5K) CC-ARVs 

    I am running it for 100 seconds with no surge events.

    The initial gas volumes in the hydroneumatic tanks start off at correct values (based on my pV^n=K calcs). However, in the absence of any transient event (no pump trip or valve closure), the volumes do not stay constant. Thanks, Parsa.

  • Thanks for sending the model. The initial surge is due to the "Air volume (initial)" field for air valves CAV2-CC and CAV3-CC. They were set to a non-zero value, which conflicts with the initially positive pressure at that air valve. So, during the transient simulation that small initial air is immediately released and you see the non-steady results when things should be steady. Set these both to zero to resolve this. I have added a note about it in this related wiki article: Troubleshooting an unexpected Initial Surge during a transient simulation

    You may still notice some small initial movement after fixing the initial air volume issue, and this appears to be related to the selection of "unsteady" for the Transient Friction Method calculation option. It is suggested that you use the "Steady" option (which maintains the initial pipe friction factors) unless you have a need to use unsteady. If you need to use the unsteady method, the "unsteady - Vitkovsky" option may produce more stable results. See more here.


    Regards,

    Jesse Dringoli
    Technical Support Manager, OpenFlows
    Bentley Communities Site Administrator
    Bentley Systems, Inc.

    Answer Verified By: Parsa Pezeshk 

  • Thanks a lot! I really appreciate your help and guidance.