Water hammer and propagation of perturbations in elastic fluid-filled pipes

Abstract

A Korteweg—de Vries (KV) approximation is constructed in this paper for the perturbations being propagated in elastic pipes filled with fluid. On the basis of the approximation constructed and the equation obtained for the perturbations of a finite-amplitude velocity, the water-hammer phenomenon is analyzed in the Zhukovskii formulation, and the water hammer in systems with preliminary longitudinal tension is considered separately. Special attention in the study of the perturbations is paid to the signal structure and evolution in the hydraulic line. Taking account of the inertial properties of the pipe in the approximation mentioned permitted the indication of new effects, in principle, which are essential for applied problems of the propagation of perturbations in elastic hydraulic lines. In particular, it is shown that the initial signal can be doubled in such lines by redistributing its intensity over the frequencies. It is established that the origination of an oscillating forerunner is possible in hydraulic lines with preliminary tension. Starting with [1], the water-hammer phenomenon was investigated in many papers, in [2], for example. The main attention in these papers was paid to the propagation velocity of the water hammer and its intensity. After simplification, the initial system of Zhukovskii equations contains no mechanism hindering the twisting of the wave profile, and, therefore, there is no possibility of stationary shock formation within the framework of this theory. Moreover, the Zhukovskii theory of the water hammer and of propagation of perturbations in elastic pipes results in the conclusion that the wave structure, velocity, and amplitude depend essentially on the characteristics of the initial perturbation and can differ significantly from the water hammer predicted by theories for powerful signals in sufficiently long pipes.