Numerical analysis of cavitation erosion and particle erosion in butterfly valve

The investigation of butterfly valve applied in the circulation water filtration system (CWF) of one pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power station is performed in the paper. A coupling computational fluid dynamics model combined multiphase, cavitation and discrete phase model has been built to simulate the cavitation erosion and particle erosion. The validity and rationality of the coupling model is sufficiently verified with the experiment of flow coefficient and effects of different factors including inlet pressure and valve opening angle are discussed in detail. The results reveal that the erosion of butterfly valve mainly occurs at the forward and backward part of valve disc. With the increase of inlet pressure, max velocity, mass flow rate, wall shear stress, turbulent intensity and particle erosion would increase. Mass flow rate, wall shear stress, turbulent intensity and particle erosion decrease with the decrease of valve opening angle. The simulation results are well consistent with the failure feature of butterfly valve applied in actual operation. The numerical analysis is expected to improve the erosion condition and reliability of butterfly valve.