Lab 4: Pipe Flow

Investigation
ME 310
Rishi Raj Sharma
TA: Aravind Ramakrishnan

1. Introduction
1.1 Background and Objective
A common problem in fluid dynamics is how to predict the flow of a fluid in a pipe. In the water,
oil, natural gas industries, hydraulic and pneumatic systems and piping in factories are some of
the areas where this problem is prevalent. Our goal in this experiment is to study the flow of
water through pipes of different diameters and roughness and predict the behavior of certain
properties like pressure drop, elevation change, head loss etc. For our experiment we chose
pipes of different diameters and measured the floe rate at different points on the pipe.
The basic principal used in our analysis is conservation of energy. The equation is thus:

In our experiment, the z values are equal and there is no w
CV
. Since the pipes have constant
diameters, we can calculate the flow rate Q as thus:

With these assumptions, our equation simplifies to

Where h
I,TOTAL
is just the sum of h
I,MAJOR
and h
I,MINOR
. The pressure drop measured across each
pipe is equal to the head loss.
Another important value that we use in our experiment is the Reynolds number (Re). The
Reynolds number is the ratio of the inertial forces with the viscous forces and is defined as:

Here is the dynamic viscosity and is calculated by using the temperature as such:

The Reynolds number can be used to determine if the flow is laminar (Re<2300), critical
(2300<Re<4300) or turbulent (Re>4300) which gives us an idea about the flow in the pipe.
These different flows are best illustrated with a Moody diagram, where the Reynolds number is
plotted against the Moody friction factor f. The friction factor and Reynolds number are
related to each other as such for laminar flow:
For turbulent flow (in smooth walled pipes) we use the Prandtl formula defined as:

For rough walled pipes, we use the Colebrook equation defined as:

These formulae help us calculate the friction factor using the Reynolds number. The theoretical
values of f are calculated using another equation:

The formulae given above and the Moody diagram are all we need in our experiment.

1.2 Assumptions
We assume incompressible and uniform flow for all pipes. The pipes were assumed to be
completely horizontal so that no work was done by the fluids and the pressure taps were far
enough from the inlet valves such that we could ignore the effects of the entrance of the fluid.
1.3 Key Symbols

2. Methods and Procedure
The apparatus used to perform the experiment was a pipe flow setup from Armfield Ltd. It has
4 different pipes with different diameters and roughness. A schematic diagram (Figure 1) shows
the main components that we use in our experiment.
2.1 Procedure
The experiment was carried out as follows. The inner diameter of the pipes where measured.
The water was switched on in the apparatus and the initial temperature was measured. The
manometer was attached to one of the pipes and all the air bubbles were removed by opening
the outlet valves. The outlet valve was opened fully and the pressure was recorded using the
manometer. The time taken to fill the tank with a set volume, say 10 liters, was recorded using
the measuring tube attached to the side of the tank. For pipe one, a graduated cylinder was
used due to the extremely low flow rate. One needs 10 readings for each pipe, so the outlet
valve was turned and the pressure changed by a value that would allow 10 readings to be
taken. For example, if the initial pressure when the valve was fully open was 10 kPa, the next
reading would be at 9 kPa, the next at 8 kPa and so on. The time taken for the tank to fill with
the predetermined volume of water, 10 liters in our case, was recorded for each value of
pressure change. This procedure was repeated for each of the 4 pipes. The final water
temperature was recorded and the system shut down.
2.2 Precautions
There are two major precautions one needs to take. One has to make sure that the pipes are
clear of all air bubbles and while taking the pressure readings one has to make sure that the
flow has reached steady state

3. Results and Discussion
Tables 1-4 show all the data from the experiment. The experimental and theoretical values of
friction factor and the Reynolds number are all in the tables. Graph 1 shows the plots of
Reynolds number vs the friction factor, both theoretical and experimental. It also shows a plot
in the laminar region. The values for pipe 1 are close to the smooth turbulent flow theoretical
values. The experimental values are very high compared to the theoretical values, this is due to
our apparatus which gave us some inconsistent readings. The values for pipe 2, both
experimental and theoretical, are very close to each other and they lie close to the smooth
turbulent flow region. The pipe 3 values are clearly rough turbulent flow du to the region and
their similarity to the rough flow curve. Pipe 4 follows a similar pattern as pipe 2 but are a bit
lower than it, also in the smooth turbulent flow region. We can clearly see from the graph that
as Re increases, f decreases. This is consistent with the fact that the Re is inversely proportional
to head loss, so with increase in Re, f decreases and so does the head loss.
Graph 2 shows the plot of theoretical f vs experimental f. A linear line has been shown to check
the accuracy of the values.