Friction loss
Friction loss
(OP)
Dear Friends,
I would like to get a clarification in calculating friction loss in a PVC pipe of 100m length.Using the formula
hfs = 4f L/D x V*2/2 X g,
Q = 30cub.m/h
L = 100m
D = 51.4mm (ID of UPVC pipe)
Kin.Viscosity of Water @ 30deg.C = 0.801 cSt
Results i got are as follows
V = 4.018119 m/sec
Re = 258164.17
f = 0.003509
And finally the head loss per 100m pipe is 22.50m.
But friction loss chart provided by the pipe manufacturer shows 19.88m for same diameter & flow.
So i applied Hazen Williams equ. but the result was 28m.
I would like to know was there anything wrong in my calculation ?
Please throw me some light.
I would like to get a clarification in calculating friction loss in a PVC pipe of 100m length.Using the formula
hfs = 4f L/D x V*2/2 X g,
Q = 30cub.m/h
L = 100m
D = 51.4mm (ID of UPVC pipe)
Kin.Viscosity of Water @ 30deg.C = 0.801 cSt
Results i got are as follows
V = 4.018119 m/sec
Re = 258164.17
f = 0.003509
And finally the head loss per 100m pipe is 22.50m.
But friction loss chart provided by the pipe manufacturer shows 19.88m for same diameter & flow.
So i applied Hazen Williams equ. but the result was 28m.
I would like to know was there anything wrong in my calculation ?
Please throw me some light.





RE: Friction loss
RE: Friction loss
I believe you’ve got the Fanning equation written wrong. It should be:
hL = (4f) (L) (v2 / (D) (2g)
Where,
hL = loss of static pressure head due to fluid flow, in feet of fluid
4f = 4 times the Fanning Friction Factor = the Darcy Friction Factor (dimensionless)
D = internal diameter of pipe, in feet
L = length of pipe, in feet
v = mean velocity of flow, feet per second
g = acceleration of gravity = 32.2 ft/sec2
My next comment is a question. What is your Friction Factor and how did you come up with it? It is not a result unless you generate it with a relationship like Churchill’s, Chen, Serghides, etc. If you generated it with one of these equations, what absolute roughness did you employ for your PVC? The big difference in your “results” could be the absolute roughness assumed.
I would not rely on the Hazen-Williams relationship as giving you an acceptable level of accuracy as compared to the Fanning (or Darcy) equation(s).
I don’t know what roughness you used, but if you resort to the US Hydraulic Institute tables for water pressure drop, and look up under 132 gpm (30 cm/hr) and 2.067 inches ID (instead of 51.4mm = 2.023 in.), I get 28.8 ft/100 ft (28.8 m/100 m). This is with a relative roughness of 0.00087 – which is probably much higher than one would expect for PVC. Therefore, I would say your calcs are OK.
I haven’t done a detailed Darcy calculation since I just want to check if you’re in the “neighborhood” of the expected answer. And I think that’s really all you want. The real answer is to be found in the real, accurate roughness value that your PVC has.
I hope this helps you out.
RE: Friction loss
It is not uncommon to find deviations of ±20% for ΔPf estimations among designers using different formulas. Therefore, it is futile to use so many significant figures.
For example, it has been established that the Darcy-Weisbach equation is an empirical one, valid for water at 15.6oC (60oF) and average flow velocities below 3 m/s.
Besides, the smaller the pipe the larger the rugosity ratio.
For a commercial polyethylene pipe (I don't have for PVC) the surface roughness ε ~ 0.1 mm with a ratio ε/D ~ 0.002, what would it be for a drawn PVC tube ?
As for myself, I'd take the ΔPf results with a pinch of salt, in particular if there is dissolved air that may be released along the way.
RE: Friction loss
For practical purposes, there is not much difference between your answer and mine.
If you assume a perfectly smooth pipe you get a friction head of 23.8 metre water, so I would say that your supplier is being overly optimistic. I have experienced similar "propaganda" from plastic piping suppliers here in South Africa, and claims are made that you will save energy (or even get away with a smaller pipe) if you use plastic instead of steel. As Mr. Montemayor has calculated, with a roughness value applicable to commercial steel pipe your pressure drop would be 28.8 m H2O, which is hardly any more than the 25.2 I calculated for PVC pipe. And with larger pipes the relative differences between plastic and steel would be even smaller.
Katmar Software
Engineering & Risk Analysis Software
http://katmarsoftware.com
RE: Friction loss
RE: Friction loss
To Mr Montemayor, I think I found a schönhait's failure in your message, cubic meter shouldn't be written cm (used for centimeter) but cubm, or meter3 or better m3. Agree ?
RE: Friction loss
It is true that the Darcy-Weisbach equation is an empirical one, but (as I have posted here before) it reflects work of true genius and is one of the outstanding achievements of engineering. The restrictions 25362 mentions (water at 15.6oC and average flow velocities below 3 m/s) do not apply to D-W. The equation takes changes in density, viscosity and velocity into account. I think you are confusing this equation with that of Hazen Williams, which does have severe restrictions. D-W also takes into account any changes in roughness (or rugosity ratio).
Katmar Software
Engineering & Risk Analysis Software
http://katmarsoftware.com
RE: Friction loss
BigInch
-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Friction loss
Your impeccable scrutiny detected my metida de pata resulting from my haste to finish the post by simply using ad hoc abbreviations. I certainly agree that you can’t equate volumetric flow rate units with velocity units. My only excuse is that I’ve been divorced from the metric system for quite some time now and never really got involved with SI units at all. Does this mean I’m prohibited from entering Metric Heaven?
On a more serious note, I thoroughly agree with you and Harvey on the accuracy to be expected from such fluid flow calculations. We can only prediict with accuracy with what we guess to be the internal surface conditions of a pipe that is differentially getting worse in roughness. A margin of 15% inaccuracy is not a surprise to me with this type of application - it all depends what the local conditions, the timining, and the application are.
Saludos
RE: Friction loss
My impression is that there are at least two factors afecting results in determining ΔPf by the various equations, beside inaccuracies in pipe dimensions and fluid physical properties:
1. The value of the friction factor "f", as clarified by the experts. "f" is frequently estimated using the Colebrook equation which is said to be within 10-15% of experimental.
2. The exponent of the flow rate in ΔPf = K.Qn has been found to vary in the range 1.9-2.1 or wider.
I wonder whether point (2) could be the reason of the discrepancy between the results offered by the pipe manufacturer and those estimated by friend81 ?
RE: Friction loss
thanks for ur comments.
but the equation i applied was Darcy Weisbach & not fannings equations ,hence i derived f value by using the formula
f = (0.0791/Reynolds No)power 0.25.
Any comments
RE: Friction loss
Since Hl = f * L/D * V^2/2/g,
I think you got lucky approximating the accepted results and that the formula only "works" when,
(0.0791/Re)^(1/4) = Hl * D/L * 2 * g /V^2,
Which I believe would be for cases where Re is equal to 1E+6. At lower turbulent flows, your friction factor could be up to about 50% too high, at higher velocities, its 20% too low and getting lower. For laminar flow, forget it.
Using a conventional formula when possible would make it easier for you and other engineers to check your work.
BigInch
-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Friction loss
Your formula for "f" is similar to the Blasius (1913) equation for turbulent flow in hydraulically smooth pipes. That equation for the Darcy friction factor is:
But its validity is up to about Re~105.
For a wider range up to and including Re~107 there are modified formulas, for example:
RE: Friction loss
The form I cited:
hL = (4f)(L)(v2/(D)(2g)
is, in reality the Famous Darcy formula – but with “f” being the Fanning Friction Factor. As you probably know, there is a BIG difference between the Darcy (a.k.a., “Moody”) Friction Factor and the Fanning Friction Factor. The Darcy Friction Factor is equal to 4 times the Fanning Friction Factor.
From page 1, Chapter 1, of the Crane Technical Paper #410 we read, “The Darcy formula is also known as the Weisbach formula or the Darcy-Weisbach formula; also, as the Fanning formula, sometimes modified so that the friction factor is one-fourth the Darcy friction factor.” The reason for the factor of 4 is that Fanning used a hydraulic radius instead of a straight radius in that version. In my well-worn and beaten-up copy of TP #410 I find a note I wrote many years ago: “The Fanning Friction Factor does not apply to formulas here unless multiplied by 4.” That was a Lesson Learned many years ago.
As Katmar has stated so many times in the past, the Darcy version is an ingenious tool worthy of engineering respect. The Darcy formula can be derived rationally by means of dimensional analysis; however, one variable in the formula (the Friction Factor) must be determined empirically. This has led, as 25362 points out, to a variety of favorite equations for “f”. I prefer to revert to a physical value – the absolute roughness measurement – as a means to derive the Friction Factor by applying the Colebrook relationship or one of its explicit variants (Churchill, Chen, Serghides, etc. ) since the Colebrook equation is an implicit one that seems to have been derived by an aspirin manufacturer.
All calculations (and assumptions) of the Friction Factor are based on experimental or empirical values and, as such, represent the variances and “inaccuracies” detected by actual field measurement. However, although I know in my heart that there will be an inaccuracy in my resulting calculations, nothing can predict the actual, real, instantaneous field conditions at any one time in a given application – and much less after operations have taken place over a period of time. Only at the initial startup can we ever have any hopes of “nailing” the values of “f”. And after that happens the values starts generally to degenerate to a worse state due to corrosion, contamination, fouling, etc.
So all we can hope to have is a general, average value subject to fluid properties, cleanliness, and maintenance.
RE: Friction loss
BigInch
-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Friction loss
Great advice. A star is the proper reward.
RE: Friction loss
BigInch:
You've provided an excellent and salient comment to an interesting and excellent subject. Your comment provides what I failed to insert in my attempt to explain where the friction factor "resides" and the need to fully understand and deal with it on a practical basis.
There's a lot more to fluid mechanics than just "cranking away" with equations and generating numbers.
Thanks.
RE: Friction loss
And clarifying somewhat... make that "design of a new pipeline using 0.0018", a figure which is actually supposed to approximate the roughness of a steel pipe after 5 years of operation.
(Actually I think we had so much sand in those gas lines, we were continuously blasting them clean
BigInch
-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Friction loss
BigInch, somewhere I've read that "practice" teaches that in conventional carbon-steel pipes the friction factor doubles in ~25 years for light HC gases, ~15 years for medium distillates, and 10 years for residual streams. Any comment ?
RE: Friction loss
If you double a roughness, that's probably a very good number to use for design. I typically use 0.0018 for steel, which seems to be just short of 2 times what comes from the mill and gives reasonable values for pipelines, since we don't count up all the angles and get the equivalent pressure drops for a million tiny little pipe bends anyway and, given the rest of the uncertainties, average temperatures and viscosities, densities over 1000 miles or so, somehow it gets pretty close no matter how old or new the pipeline is. For specific segment flows, I usually find roughness is always smaller than that value, unless there is some other problem with wax, hydrates, nothing to do with the actual roughness value of the pipe material that was choosen at design time.
All things considered, for pipelines the actual roughness value used gets pretty diluted in the end.
BigInch
-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Friction loss
f= 0.0008+{0.05525/(Re)^0.257}.
here i have taken the exact pipe diameter as 51.4mm and
Kinm.Viscosity of water as 0.000001 at 20deg.Celsius,
finally the frictionloss i got is 20.359m
RE: Friction loss
Best regards
Morten
RE: Friction loss
I like it. Converting from 0.05 mm to 0.001969 (big)inches that would tend to confirm what I have found - you need to reduce the recommended design roughness by 50% (see above 7 Dec 06 9:13), but that is still supposedly only roughness of the pipe wall and should be irrespective of the number of bends and fittings or if its plant piping or pipeline pipe.
BigInch
-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Friction loss
Best regards
Morten
RE: Friction loss
BigInch
-born in the trenches.
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com
RE: Friction loss
For plant piping there must be a fairly large number of weldings- at leat compared to a pipeline. Thats why i think that 0.05 is OK for plant but too high for pipelines.
Best regards
Morten