The accuracy and efficiency of a reduced-order model for transient flow analysis in gas pipelines

A reduced-order modeling approach for natural gas transient flow in pipelines is proposed. The Euler equations are considered as the governing equations and solved numerically using the implicit Steger–Warming flux vector splitting method (FSM). Next, the linearized form of the equations is derived and the corresponding eigensystem is obtained. Then, a few dominant flow eigenmodes are used to construct an efficient reduced-order model. Two well-known test cases are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and the computational efficiency of the proposed method. The results obtained using the proposed reduced-order model, are in good agreement with those of the direct numerical method. Moreover, it is shown that the proposed reduced-order model is more efficient than the conventional numerical techniques for transient flow analysis of natural gas in pipelines.