Effect of flywheels in pump stations for reducing the volume of air chambers.

The most common and destructive event of unsteady flow in pipes is water hammer. This phenomenon is caused by a sudden change in boundary conditions in pressurized pipes. Unsteady flow in pipelines can lead to a significant increase or decrease in pressure. This pressure generation may cause cavitation, bursting of pipes, and failure of the whole system. One type of equipment that can control both positive and negative pressure phases is a pressurized tank. Implementing such a pressure tank can impose increased costs. In order to reduce the design costs, the combination of a flywheel with the pressure tank can be used. In this study, a transmission pipeline from Zarineh River to Tabriz city is numerically simulated, and the effect of increasing the inertia of the flywheel on the reduction of the pressurized tank volume is investigated. The results show that increasing the flywheel inertia from 125 to 165 Nm² can reduce the pressurized tank volume from 90 to 75 m³. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]