Valve Maneuver Prediction in Simple and Complicated Pipeline Systems

The pressure and flow variations in pipeline systems are extremely sensitive to dynamic operations of the valves. Valve control and propagation of pressure waves along pipelines and their interactions with different pipeline elements introduce pressure transients in pipeline systems. The time series of the pressure head at any designated position depends on boundary conditions such as valve maneuver as well as geometrical and material characteristics of the pipeline system. An innovative method is proposed to calibrate the valve trajectory using pressure head records. The impedance method and particle swarm optimization were integrated with decomposition of convolution between the pressure response function and time series of the valve maneuver. To validate the applicability of this study, the developed method was tested in three hypothetical pipeline systems: a simple reservoir pipeline valve, multiple reservoir pipeline valves, and a complicated pipe network. Decomposition of the transfer function in the time domain and its convolution contributed toward improving the efficiency of the developed method. The successful calibrations of valve actions demonstrate the potential of the proposed scheme as an alternative to conventional flow meters for high-resolution flow rate evaluation.