Valve Workshop Noise Production in Hydrodynamic Control Valves Using CFD as a Tool

The lEC 534-8-4:1994 method of predicting audible noise external to a control valve (and inpipe noise levels) relies on the use of experimentally derived "valve specific" input parameters. This paper shows how Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be used as a too! to obtain these valve specific parameters w/ithout the need for experiment. Three types of 100mm throttling devices are modelled using CFD and predictions of pressure drop and velocity compared against experiment. It is then shovt/n how CFD can be used to obtain the cavrtation incepfion point and the acoustic efficiency factor so that a noise prediction can be made using the lEC approach. To demonstrate the accuracy of the CFD-IEC approach, the results of the noise prediction are compared against noise values obtained from experiment on the three throttling devices.