A finite-difference method to evaluate water hammer phenomena

Abstract

Although the method of characteristics has been preferred to evaluate water hammer effects, there are occasions where finite-difference procedures can be more suitable, for instance, when water column separation is expected. Trying to tackle such problems and based on some matrix properties, a simple method is developed in this paper which is as fast as the characteristics method and additionally, it can take easily into account more of the involved factors than those considered usually by the classical procedure.