Water hammer following the tripping of pumps can lead to overpressures and negative pressures. Reduction in overpressure and negative pressure may be necessary to avoid failure, to improve the efficiency of operation and to avoid fatigue of system components. The field tests on the water hammer have been conducted on the pump rising pipeline system with an air chamber. The hydraulic transient is modeled using the method of characteristics. Minimizing the least squares problem representing the difference between the measured and predicted transient response in the system performs the calibration of the simulation program. Among the input variables used in the water hammer analysis, the effects of the polytropic exponent, the discharge coefficient and the wave speed on the result of the numerical analysis were examined. The computer program developed in this study will be useful in designing the optimum parameters of an air chamber for the real pump pipeline system. The correct selection of air chamber size and the effects of related parameters to minimize water hammer have been investigated by both field measurements and numerical modeling.