Development of a swing check valve model for a low velocity pipe flow prediction

A swing check valve is commonly used to prevent a reverse flow in the pipe lines of a nuclear power plant. The flow resistance by the swing check valve varies with the location of the swing disk in the velocity range lower than the required minimum velocity for a full opening of the swing disk, thereby the fluid flow is significantly affected by the dynamic motion of the swing disk. Such a phenomenon is very important to analyze safety issues, one of which is the gravity feed following a loss of the residual heat removal (RHR) which occurs during a mid-loop operation. This paper focused on the development of a new check valve model to enhance the capability of the thermal-hydraulic system code. A new angular momentum equation for the disk of a swing check valve is proposed. The proposed model is implemented into the MARS code and verified through a comparison of the simulation results with the experimental data. In particular, the results of the simulation for the gravity feed line are comparably consistent with the real test data performed in a nuclear power plant.