Valve Dynamics Simulation

A large portion of the non-recurring cost of throttling type valves is associated with the effort to evaluate the dynamics of the flow through the valve. Not only do these flow dynamics affect the structural and mechanical design of the valve, they have been shown to have an effect on the combustion stability of the rocket engine. Without a means to evaluate the valve dynamics, valve developers are forced to go through several design iterations before converging on a final configuration that provides the desired dynamic characteristics. GTL proposes to address this issue by developing a new Valve Dynamics Simulation (VDS) process to evaluate the flow dynamics of throttling valves. This will be accomplished by applying the same methodology and analytical approach used to create the Universal Combustion Devices Stability (UCDS) process. While UCDS is focused on evaluating the dynamic stability of a combustion chamber, the same principles can be applied to address the effects of rapidly changing complex geometry in a throttling valve. By providing a rapid and efficient simulation of the flow dynamics in a throttling valve, VDS represents an opportunity to reduce the non-recurring cost by eliminating the need to for stability related design iterations. BENEFIT: UCDS and VDS provide an efficient means to predict the oscillation characteristics of propulsion devices. This capability will allow developers to reduce the amount of testing and design iterations needed to meet their mission requirements, which will greatly reduce non-recurring cost. Since UCDS and VDS are built from a general formulation, they can be used to analyze the components of practically any combustion related device, including rockets (liquid, solid, hybrid), turbojets (combustors, augmentors), ramjets, scramjets, combined cycle engines and so on. Therefore, potential customers for UCDS services include government agencies, such as Air Force, MDA, NASA, Army, Navy, and DARPA, and propulsion system developers, such as ATK, Aerojet, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce, and many others, while customers for VDS include valve developers such as VACCO and Moog.