A question about fluid flow and balance 1

[PRW]

We manufacture plating barrels and have a customer that wants us to apply our SprayThru system to one of their barrels for testing. They will manually connect a hose from the pump to the quick connection on the side of the barrel.

I need to know how to be able to assure them that the flow through all four of the same size nozzles with be similar in spite of the fact that two will be 10” below the solution level of the tank containing the plating barrel and the other two will be 27” below the solution level. The total solution depth is about 45”.

All four of the nozzles have a flow rate 15.9 GPM at 40 PSI. They will be using a 5 HP pump rated at 80 GPM. The pump will send liquid through a 1-1/2" test piping to a manifold that will supply four 3/4" hoses routed to the individual nozzles. There is a drawing attached. As can be seen, the solution will flow through the manifold and down to the nozzles.

The hoses to the two upper nozzles are each about 7" long, and the hoses to the lower nozzles are each about 24" long.

Of course if the four nozzles will not be balanced, what do we do to balance them?

If the testing proves successful, they want to convert ten more barrels. These will have a manifold at the bottom sending solution up to the nozzles. The manifold will set down on a ball connector also supplied by 1-1/2" piping. Will the difference in flow direction affect the flow?



Please let me know if there is any more info that is needed to help answer this question.

 

[Compositepro]

It all depends on how accurate you need to be. You might start with rotameters in each line which will allow the operator to verify flow rates. Then flow can be adjusted with manual valves or automatically with "liquid flow controllers" (Google it).

If you need little accuracy then restrictive orifices should suffice as long as the pressure drop across the orifice is large compared to all other pressure drops. Operating an 80 gpm pump at 16 gpm is not usually a good idea.

 

[katmar]

The critical piece of information is the flow characteristic of the nozzle. If your pump is genuinely generating 40 psi then it looks as though most of that is being consumed by the nozzles and very little by the piping and hoses (and the submergence). If most of the pressure drop is caused by the nozzles themselves then the small changes in the supply piping that you have described will not have a material influence.

Katmar Software - AioFlo Pipe Hydraulics

http://katmarsoftware.com

"An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions"

 

[PRW]

Instead of "All four of the nozzles have a flow rate 15.9 GPM at 40 PSI" it should have read "Each of the four nozzles have a flow rate 15.9 GPM at 40 PSI", for a combined flow rate of 72 GPM.

Sorry for the confusion!