Transient Flow Simulation in Natural Gas Pipelines Using the State Space Model

A transient flow simulation for gas pipelines and networks is proposed. The proposed transient flow simulation is based on the state space equations. The equivalent transfer functions of the nonlinear governing equations are derived for different boundary conditions types. Next, the state space equations are derived from the transfer functions. To verify the accuracy of the proposed simulation, the results obtained are compared with those of the conventional finite difference schemes (such as total variation diminishing algorithms, method of lines, and other finite difference implicit and explicit schemes). The effect of the flow inertia is incorporated in this simulation. The accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed method are discussed for a single gas pipeline and a sample gas network.