Hi everyone,
I have a DN50 process water line with a hand valve controlling the amount of flow (usually set to about 2.5m³/h).
I've checked the supplier of the hand valve's data, it has a kv value of 91.7 when fully opened.
This would mean (if I understand correctly) that a flow of 213m³/h is possible when this valve is fully opened.
The pump supplying the water can give up to 600m³/h if necessary at 5.4 bar(g).
To protect connected vessels we need to limit the amount of water that could flow through this line to a maximum of 40m³/h.
A restriction orifice would be an easy fix but the manufacturer told us the resulting pressure drop over the orifice is large enough to cause cavitation.
he suggested installing multiple orifices to create a step-wise pressure drop.
This made me wonder why we haven't noticed any cavitation when using the hand valve to limit the flow...
Any input on all of the above would be very welcome