A direct-acting pressure regulator is a key device for agriculture irrigation system used to ensure the equal operating pressure of the emitter or sprinkler nozzle required for high uniformity. This study develops a dynamic model for the pressure regulator by applying computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. For this purpose, after analyzing the structure and basic working principle of the direct-operated pressure regulator, the fluid-rigid body interaction model of the regulating plunger was built by force balance approach. The mathematical model consists of the fluid governing equations, the equation of dynamic mesh for regulator and an equation of motion for the regulating plunger. The Navier–Stokes equation along with standardk-εturbulent closure was solved numerically in the incompressible flow regime by commercial ANSYS Fluent code. The dynamic mesh technique using a layering algorithm was performed for the displacement of domain boundaries and mesh deformation due to the movement of the regulating plunger. A user defined function (UDF) was compiled in the ANSYS Fluent code for solving the equation of motion for the regulating plunger in every time step during the unsteady calculation. With a geometrically accurate CFD model of the pressure regulator, the complete transient process of the regulating plunger from the initial position to the final position device from force balance was simulated under inlet pressure ranging from 0.025 to 0.4 MPa and flow rate ranging from 350 L/h to the maximum within regulation range conditions. The regulating performance curves and the pressure distributions through the regulator at each time step were obtained with the response parameters, including the force acting on the regulating plunger, the displacement of the plunger, and the outlet pressure of the regulator. A series of experimental tests matching to the conditions of the calculation were performed on pressure regulator with preset pressure of 0.05, 0.075 and 0.1 MPa. The experimental determination of the outlet pressure was carried out and compared to the computational values. The results showed that the regulating performance curves obtained by simulation were close to that obtained by experimental tests, and the numerical and experimental preset pressure agreed within?13.4%, which was considered to be quite acceptable. The effects of the flow rate and spring parameter son regulating performance were investigated, which showed that the preset pressure was affected by the flow rate. For the same type pressure regulator, a lower flow rate corresponded to a slightly higher outlet pressure. Thus the spring preload hade linear relationship with the preset pressure. By increasing the spring per-stressed force, the preset pressure increased proportionally. On the basis of the experimentally valid model, the dynamic simulative results, which consisted of the force acting on the regulating plunger verse time, the motion characteristics of the plunger, and the outlet pressure of the regulator verse time, were analyzed and accounted for the pressure regulating mechanism of the direct-acting pressure regulator. The detail pictures of the pressure distributions through the regulator provided an improved understanding on operating characteristic of the pressure regulator. The numerical model is reliable to predict the preset pressure and regulating performance of the regulator, which has great potential of assisting the designers to optimize the direct-operated pressure regulator.%直动式压力调节器是灌溉系统重要的压力调节设备,在调节范围内可保证其下游压力不受上游压力变化的影响,从而控制管网压力变化对灌水器流量的影响,提高灌水均匀度.针对压力调节器进口压力改变时,调节杆受上下游压力差与弹簧力的作用发生位移以保持稳定的出口压力的特性,该文基于计算流体动力学方法,采用动力平衡分析和动网格技术,建立了灌溉系统直动式压力调节器的流固耦合动力学模型,并进行了试验验证.分析了弹簧参数对预置压力的影响和压力调节器内部压力分布随时间的变化特征,以及调节杆上下游断面受力、位移和压力调节器出口压力的动态变化.结果表明,由数值计算得到多种流量条件下不同预置压力规格的压力调节器调压性能曲线与试验测试结果吻合,预置压力模拟值的相对误差小于?13.5%;同种规格压力调节器,预置压力随着过流量减小而增大;压力调节器的预置压力随弹簧预紧力的增大呈线性增大.该模型可用于压力调节器的结构设计和优化.
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