Author(s): Leonardo Morimoto; Luis Eduardo Moussa Youssef; Laura Aurora De Melo Santana; Alexandre Kepler Soares

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Keywords: Hydraulic transients; Hydropneumatic tank; Air chamber; Optimization

Abstract: Transient regimes are analyzed in terms of the safety and reliability of the operation of hydraulic systems. For severe conditions, such as the sudden shutdown of the pump set in pumping stations, protection devices are needed. Among the existing solutions, Hydropneumatic Tanks stands out. Its design is usually done by trial and error since it is not possible to establish an explicit relationship between its volume and the design loadings. In this work, an optimal sizing algorithm was developed aiming to minimize its volume, and, consequently, its cost. For this, the Particle Swarm Optimization method has been used. The pump trip off was calculated by the traditional method of characteristics, which hydraulic solver includes several boundary conditions. After defining the search feasible region, the global minimum is found with satisfactory convergence after 33 iterations. The minimum commercial volume is reached after 10 iterations. The relationships between the results and the hyperparameters of the optimization method have been discussed. A real-life water pumping system was monitored during hydraulic transients caused by a pump trip off. The dynamic effects related to both the hydropneumatic tank and the air valves were studied. The PSO algorithm was successfully applied for the optimal design of an air vessel for pumping system protection. The process proved to be straightforward than the conventional method of verification with trial and error. Simulations favoring the social parameter were more suitable for this case, since they delivered faster convergence and there is no concern with local minima and premature convergence.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/978-90-833476-1-5_iahr40wc-p0985-cd

Year: 2023