Minor losses in
pipe flow are a major part in calculating the flow, pressure, or energy reduction in
piping
Within industry, piping is a system of pipes used to convey fluids (liquids and gases) from one location to another. The engineering discipline of piping design studies the efficient transport of fluid.
Industrial process piping (and accomp ...
systems. Liquid moving through pipes carries momentum and energy due to the forces acting upon it such as pressure and gravity. Just as certain aspects of the system can increase the fluids energy, there are components of the system that act against the fluid and reduce its energy, velocity, or momentum. Friction and minor losses in pipes are major contributing factors.
Friction Losses
Before being able to use the minor head losses in an equation, the losses in the system due to friction must also be calculated.
Equation for friction losses:
= Frictional head loss
= Downstream velocity
= Gravity of Earth
=
Hydraulic radius
The Manning formula or Manning's equation is an empirical formula estimating the average velocity of a liquid in an open channel flow (flowing in a conduit that does not completely enclose the liquid). However, this equation is also used for calc ...
=Total length of piping
=
Fanning friction factor
The Fanning friction factor (named after American engineer John T. Fanning) is a dimensionless number used as a local parameter in continuum mechanics calculations. It is defined as the ratio between the local shear stress and the local flow ki ...
Total Head Loss
After both minor losses and friction losses have been calculated, these values can be summed to find the total head loss.
Equation for total head loss,
, can be simplified and rewritten as: