Study of incident water hammer in an engineering loop under two-phase flow experiment

Water hammer can occur in case of an inflow of sub-cooled water into pipes or other parts of the equipment filled with steam or steam-water mixture. The shock loading due to dynamic pressure during water hammer induces high stresses in the walls of piping especially in the bends. A study was carried out to analyze real life incident of water hammer wherein an attempt was made to recreate water hammer involving steam-water interaction in an instrumented engineering loop to capture pressure, temperature, flow rate and fluid levels in the loop. The arrival time of multiple shocks and the time lag between them is examined in the paper with the support of energy balance equation for variable flow processes.