The importance of experimental tests on air valves for proper choice in a water supply project

Abstract

This study demonstrates the importance of experimental tests on air valves. For this purpose, a bench was designed and built in the Laboratory of Hydraulics and Fluid Mechanics of the School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urbanism (FEC) of State University of Campinas—Unicamp that simulates the operation of a water supply system. The maneuver procedures have been defined for the filling and emptying operations of the pipelines. The results indicated that the catalogs of the studied air valves overestimated the values of the expelled air flowrate by up to 6 times. Thus, this study indicates the need to perform dynamic tests to ensure safety in the choice of the air valve, system stability with a decrease in transient events and consequent economy with reduced head loss, energy consumption and maintenance.