The majority of oil and refined product pipelines in Brazil employ pressure relief valves in the design of their protection system. Thus, the perfect design and operation of these valves is essential to ensure the safety of transport pipelines and loading and unloading terminals, under any abnormal condition of operation that generates overpressures. These valves work by relieving the internal pressure in case it exceeds a pre-set and calibrated value. In a nutshell, the spring-type pressure relief valve has a disk which is pressed by a spring against the inlet nozzle of the valve. When the pressure rises, the force generated on the surface of the disc increases and, depending on the pressure relief valve set point, the pressure force overcomes the force exerted by the spring, causing the disk to rise and thus discharging the fluid through the outlet nozzle to the relief tank, consequently reducing the pressure in the pipeline. Using this principle, the relief valve ensures that the pipeline is not subjected to high transient pressures, which could lead to pipeline or equipment rupture and possible product leak. The present dissertation describes a numerical and experimental study conducted to determine the dynamic behavior of spring-type relief valves. The experiments were conducted in a water pipe loop equipped a pump, a block valve to generate the pressure transients and a commercial spring-type pressure relief valve. The loop was instrumented with pressure, flow and temperature transducers. The relief valve was instrumented to measure the variables necessary to study the dynamic behavior of the valve and the transient pressure and flow generated in the pipeline. The experimental results were compared with results obtained from computer models allowing the improvement and validation of these models.