Study on Safety Characteristics of Gate Valve Transient Operation in High Temperature Molten Salt Thermal Energy Storage System

Abstract

At present, the new energy industry in the world is thriving, but there are obvious intermittent and random characteristics of various power generation methods such as solar energy and wind power. The molten salt energy storage power generation system can effectively reduce the peak fluctuations of the power grid and greatly improve the overall economic advantage. As an important component of the pipe system, the gate valve is widely used in power generation systems. Because molten salt systems may face faster power changes so during certain transient process, the main gate valve may have to withstand rapid changes in mass flow and temperature, which may cause rapid changes in the temperature field of the valve body, resulting in additional thermal stress. In this paper, the CFD method is used to analysis the flow and temperature fields of the main gate valve during the transient process. The key to success is to describe the geometry as accurately as possible and to build a reasonable grid because of larger calculation quality for transient. Then based on the temperature field of valve body the thermal stress and change law can be obtained, which can provide guidance for the design of the gate valve.