Abstract

RODRIGUEZ CALDERON, Wilson  and  PALLARES MUNOZ, Myriam Rocío. A numerical water-hammer model using Scilab. Ing. Investig. [online]. 2007, vol.27, n.3, pp.98-105. ISSN 0120-5609.

A water hammer can produce severe consequences regarding pipe integrity; simulation thus becomes an essential requirement for ensuring proper water distribution system design and operation. This article thus tries to demonstrate the importance of numerical methods in resolving such problems. A Scilab code allowing pressure propagation to be represented using the characteristics’ method applied to a case of classic literature was thus developed for numerically simulating this phenomenon. This method uses a finite difference scheme for resolving mass and momentum equations. The article presents equations governing the problem from the numerical point of view, the phenomenon’s behaviour is analysed and results obtained by the numerical approach (calculating finite differences) are compared to those obtained with Scilab and the theoretical solution.

Keywords : numerical methods; Scilab; characteristics method; water hammer.

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