Journal of Loss Prevention in The Process Industries, Vol.12, No.4, 269-297, 1999
Benchmarking of two-phase flow through safety relief valves and pipes
This paper compares calculated results for two-phase flows through safety relief valves and pipes using the TPHEM, CCFLOW and RRERSP computer programs. These studies were conducted to locate errors in the programs as well as to further our understanding of how each program worked. For most low-to-moderate viscosity flow examples, and for the frozen flow examples, the program results agreed despite differences in the calculation methods. Current thinking is that the TPHEM computer program gets better results for high viscosity flows through safety relief valves (nozzles) and for pipe down flows. This is because this program successively iterates nozzle flows to achieve results consistent with the choke pressure, temperature and quality and successively iterates pipe flows to achieve results consistent with the pipe length. Safety relief valve flows from the RRERSP computer program are reduced by the inlet pipe non-recoverable pressure loss. This effect is significant for several cases.