Study on the influence of structural parameters on the flow and cavitation characteristics of tandem multi-stage pressure-reducing valves

Tandem multi-stage pressure-reducing valves (TMSPRV) are widely used for piping systems in the process industry. The flow coefficient is a central factor in valve design. The cavitation was caused by the local pressure of the fluid passing through the pressure-reducing valve being lower than the saturated steam pressure. Would cause serious damage to the pipeline system. Therefore, it is important to investigate systematically the effect of throttling structure parameters on the flow and cavitation characteristics of valves. In this paper, a combination of experimental and numerical simulations was used to study the effect of different structural parameters of valves on the flow coefficient. The results showed that increasing the flow channel inclination is beneficial to enlarging the flow coefficient. Meanwhile, the effects of different structural parameters on pressure and velocity of pressure reducing valves are discussed, the results indicated that increasing the inclination of the flow channel would reduce the vortex volume at the outlet. With the increase of the chamfer, the low-pressure area caused by the vortex in the near-wall surface decreases. Numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the effect of different structural parameters on the cavitation characteristics of valves. The numerical results showed that the flow channel inclination angle is 60° and the flow channel chamfer is less than 6 mm as the optimal value. In summary, considering the influence of structural parameters on flow coefficient, flow characteristics, and cavitation characteristics. The runner inclination angle is 60°, and the runner chamfer is 4 mm as the best value. The research work in this paper could provide technical support to achieve a better fluid pressure reducing and flow state of the TMSPRV under severe working conditions.