I spend much of my day sizing and selecting control valves based on data provided by my clients’ engineers, and from

time to time the question

of “choked flow” will come up. I will often see on clients’ spec sheets or in their Control Valve Specifications something to the effect of: “Control
valves shall be sized and selected to prevent Cavitation, Flashing, or Choked Flow.” Although all three effects are due to a fluid dropping below
the vapor pressure, aka the vena contracta, choked flow is drastically different than cavitation or flashing and really should be addressed
differently. So what is “choked flow” and why is it bad? When should it be avoided and when could it be ignored?

First off, let’s go way back to basics and remember why and how fluid flows through a pipe. (To keep things simple, I’m going to use water as
my fluid.) Things move when acted upon by a force, some force, any force; so in order to get a liquid to move, or flow, it must be acted on by a
force. In order to get flow there MUST be a differential in pressure, without a pressure drop, a pipe is just a pressurized vessel full of water that
doesn’t flow.

Now, in this simple example, if a pump has an output of 50psi, and then downstream of the some fixed orifice the system pressure is 25psi, then
there will be flowing water out of the pipe. (This is a VERY crude scenario, and we’re assuming that there is a system pressure of 25psi and that
it’s not simply atmosphere for the purpose of this example.)

Now with the water flowing from the pump, through the fixed orifice, and out of the pipe, let’s now take a closer look at the “fixed orifice” and how
that affects the flow. In this case, the fixed orifice here is an orifice plate, where there is a smaller hole in the plate than the inner diameter of the
pipe. For this example, we will use a 4in pipe with a 2in orifice plate that has a flowing Cv of 20. So using the simple equation for water flow, Q =
Cv*√(dP/SG) where SG is the specific gravity of water (1), dP is the pressure drop of 25psi, and with the given Cv of 20, this system will flow
100gpm of water. Keep in mind, that in this example, this is a “FIXED ORIFICE” meaning that the Cv through it will ALWAYS be 20; whereas a
control valve is a variable orifice and the Cv through the valve can be adjusted based on the needs of the system up to the limit of the max Cv of
the valve.

You might be saying at this point, “OK Brooks, but you still have not answered the initial question, “What is Choked Flow?” Now that we have
discussed flow, here a definition of “Choked Flow”

Choked Flow Definition:

Pertaining to liquids – The maximum or limiting flow rate (Q-max), commonly called choked flow, is manifested by no additional increase in the
flow rate with increasing pressure differential with fixed upstream conditions. In liquids, choking occurs as a result of vaporization of the liquid
when the static pressure within the valve drops below the vapor pressure of the liquid.
Pertaining to gases/steam – Critical flow is a choked flow condition caused by increased gas velocity at the vena contracta. When velocity at the
vena contracta reaches sonic velocity, additional increases in dP by reducing downstream pressure produce no increase in flow.

So what does this mean? In basic terms, as you decrease the outlet pressure, which increases the pressure drop, choked flow results in no
additional flow; meaning you can’t get any more flow out of the fixed orifice. As a basic rule of thumb: As the pressure drop ratio (dP/P1)
increases and gets closer to 0.5, the probability of choked flow goes up. So in the example above, our pressure drop ratio is 0.5 meaning that
this scenario is probably at the edge of choked flow. But is that bad? As you’ve read down this far, are you now asking, “Choked flow sounds
bad, is it bad? Why is choked flow bad?”

A control system is designed to be able to control some parameter, whether it is temperature, flow rate, or pressure, if the system is designed to
control some set point, it must be able to do so. So when how does “choked flow” factor into this? In our example above, we were looking at a
system with a fixed orifice and we saw that as the dP/P1 ratio approached 0.5 the possibility for choked flow increased. So does that mean that
we can’t have a control valve in a system unless the dP is less than half of the inlet pressure? If so, that would make process control VERY
difficult! So at this point in the post, I know you’re thinking, “OK! Get to it Brooks, why then is choked flow bad?”

Choked flow is bad because you can’t get any more flow by increasing the pressure drop… with a fixed orifice and constant inlet
conditions. Now go back and pay attention to the part “with a fixed orifice and constant inlet conditions." Choked flow is important and very
bad when you have a fixed orifice either in an orifice plate OR if you have a control valve that is wide open. Remember that a control valve (or
regulator) is a variable orifice and the Cv through the valve can be adjusted until it is wide open and the Max Cv is reached. So this also moves
us towards the last two questions, “When should it be avoided and when could it be ignored?” Generally speaking, if a valve is sized properly
and there is a possibility of choked flow, it should be acknowledged what is the dP/P1 ratio and also how much more Cv is available in the
valve? If the choked flow conditions occur when the valve is 50% open, then in a scenario where more flow is needed, the controller will open
the valve until more flow goes through the valve. Remember, choked flow is based on no changes in inlet conditions or Cv, so if the Cv can
change, then the issues with choked flow also change. That being said, if a valve is sized and the Cv for the max flow condition is calculated at
a Cv of 47 and the max Cv out of the valve is 50, then that would be a scenario where you might want to look at a different valve, since there is
not a lot of increasing of the flow area before the max Cv out of the valve is reached.

Finally, let’s take a look at the valve sizing below; this is a real example where the client looked at the valve sizing and called asking about the
“dP Choked / Critical” value listed on the sizing. In this example we’re solving for Steam Flow in lb/hr and the all of the service conditions are the
same:

P1 = 600psig / P2 = 180psig / dP = 420psi / dP/P1 = 0.683 / T = 590F

The client called and said, “This valve will not work, the dP Choked is 231psi and we have a 420psi drop, the valve will not pass the 22,000lb/hr
of flow we need.” I went back into our sizing and added a Minimum and Maximum case and calculated the flow rate at a Cv of 22 & 42 so show
that the valve will be able to pass more flow, if the valve is opened more. This valve has a max Cv of 53.6 so there is plenty of capacity for the
valve to open more to get more flow through the valve. So in the example, it should be noted that there is a relatively large pressure drop and
that there are cases where the flow is choked through the valve, again which means that if the valve plug does not move and the inlet pressure
does not change, then there will be no increase in flow rate if the outlet pressure is reduced… so if you need more flow, open the valve a bit
more.

This is a quick and basic summary of choked flow and how it plays a role in control valve sizing. There is a lot more that I could cover by just
going into more detail around the examples that I’ve given, but this is meant to serve as a general overview. I hope that this brief post helps you
understand the basics of choked flow. If you have any comments or if something that I’ve written here isn’t clear, feel free to post in the
comments and I will comment back. Also, if you have anything you want to add to the conversation or maybe any advice for future topics,
please feel free to comment on this post.

~JBHIII

J. Brooks Honeycutt III

Senior Applications Engineer with Emerson through R.E. Mason
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3 comments

Manan Joshi
Process Engineer at L & T Chiyoda Ltd
I have seen many valves that are designed for choke conditions. There are various techniques used. The trim design is special in such cases.
Also unlike our normal globe valve such valve will have multiple orifice Matrix anti cavity valve is a good example. Another is MIL multi stage
valve. In a worst scenario for a project we had sand along with oil and gas. There was cavitation and also possiblity of erosion due to hard sand.
We had provided an out of box solution and valve is working fine.
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Pranavkumar Jethva
Competent professional Process Engineer with 6+ years of experience in Oil & Gas, Refinery and Petrochemical field.
Thanks Brooks...Keep it post!!
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Usama Khan
Chemical Chef providing Optimized recipe of Process Variables to keep your Plant Healthy❴Process Analyst & Engineer❵
Thanks for clearing things up ...The screenshot is from HYSYS Operations Manual v3,2 ...The question I am going to ask that in most Emerson
& other literature C1 value is taken to be ~30 but most importantly it's valve type & valve size dependent, Can you give detail answer (or maybe
a new article) to why HYSYS chose a default value of 25? And any good resource to at least guide me (preliminary) which range of C1 is to be
supposed if I want to use a say butterfly valve type?