Air Valves

• An air/vacuum valve is installed downstream of pumps and at high

points to exhaust large volumes ofair during pump startup
and pipeline filling
Sources of Air
• First, at startup, the pipeline contains air which must be exhausted
during filling. A large amount of air will become trapped at system
high points.
• The dissolved air will come out of solution with a rise in temperature
or a drop in pressure which will occur at high points due to the
increase in elevation.
• Finally, air can enter through equipment such as pumps, fittings, and
valves when vacuum conditions occur.
Types
• Air release valves
• Air/Vacuum Valves
• Combination valves
Air release valves
• Release air under pressure continuously during
pipeline operation.
• The air release valve has a float to sense the
presence of air and a linkage mechanism that gives
the float mechanical advantage in opening the
orifice under full pipeline pressures.
• The valve has a small precision orifice in the range
of 1.6-mm to 13-mm.
Air/Vacuum Valves
• An air/vacuum valve is installed downstream of
pumps and at high points to exhaust large
volumes of air during pump startup and
pipeline filling.
• A float in the valve rises with the water level to
shut off the valve when the air has been
exhausted. Upon the loss of pressure due to
draining, line break, or column separation, the
float will drop and allow air to reenter the pipe.
Combination Air Valves
• A combination valve contains both a small air
release orifice and a large air/vacuum port in
one assembly.
• combination air valves on a pipeline because all
air valve functions are included and a mistake
in field installation will not leave the pipeline
unprotected.
Pressure relief valve (PRV)
• Type of safety valve used to control or limit the pressure in a
system.
• The pressure is relieved by allowing the pressurised fluid to
flow from an auxiliary passage out of the system.
• In some cases, a so-called bypass valve acts as a relief valve
by being used to return all or part of the fluid discharged by
a pump or gas compressor back to either a storage reservoir
or the inlet of the pump or gas compressor.
• Comply with ISO 4126.
General Purpose Valve (GPV)
• The General Purpose Valve (GPV) is just that - a general purpose
element that is useful in all sorts of situations.
• One could use it to model the headloss through a turbine, the
drawdown of a groundwater well as outflow increases, or even a
special control valve that can't easily be modeled using one of the
other valve types.
• flow-headloss relationship for the device is required.
Flow Control Valves
• These valves limit the flow rate through the valve to a specified value in a
user chosen direction.
• A flow rate is used to control the operation of a flow control valve. These
valves are commonly found in areas where a water district has contracted
with another district or a private developer to limit the maximum demand
to a valve that will not adversely affect the providers system.
• The FCV will only throttle if the flow through it is greater than the setting. It
will attempt to induce a headloss that causes the network to balance in
such a way that the flow through it is reduced down to that setting. If the
flow through it is already less than the setting without any headloss, then
the FCV will be "inactive" (fully open) and you'll get a notification stating
that the valve "cannot deliver flow".
Throttle control valve (TCV)
• A TCV may be used to simulate a partially opened valve by adjusting
the minor loss coefficient. They are normally used to increase or
decrease flows or to control pressures in the system.
• standard headloss or discharge coefficient during the initial
conditions.
• With a throttle control valve, the minor loss 'K' is adjusted based on
some other system flow or head.
Pressure Sustaining Valve (PSV)
• Pressure Sustaining Valves (PSVs) throttle (ie. limit or restrict) flow to
maintain a user-defined upstream pressure or hydraulic grade.
• PSVs are useful in situations where unregulated flow would result in
inadequate pressures (too low) in the upstream portion of a system.
They are also often used to model pressure relief valves.
Pressure breaker valve (PBV)

• setting the downstream pressure to whatever you want.

• hook up a control valve to a PLC with power in order to get the
behavior of a constant pressure drop regardless of flow. On the other
hand, a PRV is an inexpensive, off-the-shelf valve that doesn't require
power. A PRV gives you the behavior you want. It gives you the
downstream pressure rather than trying to create some artificial
pressure drop.