Numerical Study of Solid–liquid Two-phase Flows and Erosion in a Y-type Slurry Valve with Different Seat Structures

Abstract

As a common industrial valve solution in slurry pipeline systems, Y-type slurry valves must be designed with properly shaped valve seat sealing rings to alleviate particle erosion and keep the valve operating in optimal condition. In this study, we investigate four different valve seat shapes with varying inner angles to understand the effect of the seat structure on particle erosion in Y-type slurry valves. We conducted computation fluid dynamics discrete element method simulations to analyze the impact of different valve seat shapes on the characteristics of particle–liquid two-phase flows and erosion. We also performed a detailed analysis of velocity and pressure distributions for liquid phase and particle velocity distributions as well as surface erosion on key valve components. We observed the primary erosion areas to be the back surface of the valve body, the inner surface of the valve seat, and the front surface of the valve disc, and as a result, we investigated the erosion distribution in these areas with different valve seat structures. Our simulation results indicate that the variation in particle diameter and the inner angle of the valve seat sealing ring have significant impacts on erosion in the studied areas.

Keywords

• y-type slurry valve
• solid-liquid two-phase flows
• erosion
• seat structure
• cfd-dem