Understand mainline valves

Mainline valves refer to valve objects that are placed at the pipeline level directly as opposed to being encapsulated within a station. AVEVA Process Simulation (APS) supports the placement of mainline valves in the flow network model and AVEVA Pipeline Operations for Liquids supports the importing of such valves. In the connectivity model, mainline valves and valves-within-a-station are treated the same way.

For the Line Blockage application to function correctly, mainline valves must be placed between stations. Placing mainline valves between stations is important because, when Line Blockage traverses a Flow Network, it begins at the inlet of the first station and ends at the outlet of the last station. Objects that are placed outside of these boundaries will not be included in processing.

In the following example, Line Blockage performs shutdowns as a result of closing mainline valves BV1 and BV2. However, Line Blockage will not react to closing mainline valve BV3 because it is placed after the last station in the model. To address this issue, BV3 should be encapsulated within a station.

Note: If you want to insert a valve at the pipeline level from APS, navigate to the Model Library, and then select SimSuite Overview > Block Valve. Using the valve object from the SimSuite Station model Library will not work as it cannot be connected at the Pipeline/Overview level.