Print this pageSurge Analysis
Surge pressures are created whenever the flow is changed abruptly and these pressures superimpose upon the operating pressure and spread throughout the whole system.
These pressure are frequently the highest and lowest that will ever be seen in a system and so become the primary design case and also the major cause of damage, leaks and downtime.
Surge also causes low pressures which means that surge pressures are the dominant cause of air valve operation, hence contamination risk, noise and odour.
A pressure rise of 10 bar can result from as little as 1 m/s which means that most pipe design pressure rating can be exceeded and most system can experience severe subatmospheric pressures.
Specialist surge programs are the only globally acknowledged method of analysing surge pressures, manual techniques have been shown to be unreliable – Read more
Surge pressures have caused so much damage and reduced the life expectancy of so many systems that an analysis is stipulated in most in-house design guides, most pipeline design codes and industry standards such as SfA. Most advanced design teams now build the costs of a surge analysis into each design budget.
Standards |
Waterhammer |
| Surge analysis is required by most pipeline codes of practice and by SfA.
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Two technical names for exactly the same phenomena have come to be used in the industry. Waterhammer and Surge Analysis – they both refer to the same pressure changes that occur in piped system. |
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