A transient gas pipeline network simulation model for decoupling the hydraulic-thermal process and the component tracking process

The metering mode is gradually changing from volumetric metering to energy metering under the open-access operation of gas pipelines. The gas component tracking by operating simulation is an effective method to realize the energy metering of gas networks. In this paper, coupling and decoupling transient component tracking models of gas networks are proposed. The pipeline governing equations, compressor equations, valve equations, and node relationship equations are considered in the proposed models. The implicit central difference method and the damped Newtonian method are adopted to solve the models. The coupling model considers the component tracking part and hydraulic-thermal simulation as a whole, while the decoupling model splits the whole process into the gas component tracking part, the parameters calculation part, and the hydraulic-thermal simulation part. In the component tracking part, the spatiotemporal variation of the gas mass fraction and density can be obtained through the input velocity of each node. Then, the parameters in the gas state equation can be solved, the hydraulic-thermal simulation can be performed, and the new velocity of each node can be calculated. The iteration for each time step ends if the deviation of flow velocity in the component tracking process and the hydraulic-thermal process satisfies the requirements. Two cases are studied to verify the effectiveness of the proposed models, and the boundary condition adaptability of the transient simulation models is analyzed. The proposed models can efficiently simulate the spatiotemporal variation of the operating variables and gas components, providing a reference in the operation of natural gas pipeline networks.