Piping Pressure Drop Functions by Stephen Hall, PE

PIPESIZE, a comprehensive pipe sizing spreadsheet template is available from http://www.pipesizingsoftware.com PIPESIZE includes pre-formatted datasheets, extensive tables of piping and material properties, and other great features.

This template contains a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) function to facilitate the building of pressure drop templates. It is written for American units of measure; the PIPESIZE template has functions for SI Units This function is designed for liquid water only; PIPESIZE works with any liquid or gas, and PIPESIZE also solves compressible flow problems that are either isothermal or adiabatic.

Input Data Required Pipe Data Inside Diameter of Pipe Surface Roughness Equivalent Length Fluid Data Mass Flow Rate Upstream Pressure Temperature

units inches feet feet

value 1.380 0.00080 100

lb/hr psia deg F

30,000 55.0 80

Note: the viscosity and density are computed in the Function subroutine using the following formulas: Viscosity, lb/ft-h = -0.23535 + 208.65 / Tin - 2074.8 / Tin ^ 2 Density, lb/ft3 = 62.7538 - 0.00353 * Tin - 0.0000482 * Tin ^ 2 Calculation Downstream Pressure Pressure Drop, friction

psia psi

21.7 33.32

To calculate pressure drop directly, if Upstream Pressure is unknown, use an arbitary value for pressure (in this example, 100): Pressure Drop, friction psi 33.32

Function PDUSa(W, Pin, Pout, d, L, epsilon, Optional Tin) ' Pressure Drop due to friction in a round pipe for water only ' with the following arguments ' Specify two of the following three; function will compute the third ' W = mass flow rate, lb/hr ' Pin = inlet, or upstream, pressure, psia ' Pout = outlet, or downstream pressure, psia ' Pipe properties ' d = pipe inside diameter, inches ' L = pipe length, feet ' epsilon = Surface roughness is in units feet ' Fluid properties ' Tin -- inlet temperature, deg F (default to 60)

' Fluid properties ' Tin -- inlet temperature, deg F (default to 60) ' Density -- calculated for water, lb/ft3

nd other great features.

essure (in this example, 100):

Simple Cooling Water Distribution System Model by Stephen Hall www.pipesizingsoftware.com Assumptions: Each user controls its own flow rate with a control valve Pressure in the supply pipe is controlled with a bypass Pressure Control Valve The RED cells are user inputs The YELLOW HIGHLIGHTED cells are the pressures calculated at each node Black cells are calculated values See Sheet 1 for an explanation of the VBA macro that calculates the pressures Notes:

Sep-12

It would be easy to model water losses, such as consumption by a user with no return to the loop Uncontrolled flow through a user can also be modeled, but requires an iterative calculation - in this case, the flow would be determined by the equivalent length of the user and the pressure differential from It is also easy to add a pump (using the pump curve) and have it determine the the flow into the supply pipe With a model like this, expanded to hundreds of user points and with many branch lines, "what if" games can be p The "what if" analysis could be used to see the effect of changing the setpoint of the pressure control valve, use o

Supply Pipe 6 inch 80 deg F

Return Pipe 6 inch 20 psig 500 ft

500 gpm 56.14 psig

User 1

100 F 50 gpm

89.6 F 500 gpm 24.97 psig

300 ft 450 gpm 53.71 psig User 2 95 F 100 gpm

300 ft 88.4 F 450 gpm 27.39 psig

500 ft User 3 350 gpm 51.24 psig 105 F 75 gpm

500 ft 86.5 F 350 gpm 29.86 psig

250 ft User 4 275 gpm 85 F 80 gpm

250 ft 81.5 F 275 gpm

50.47 psig

30.63 psig 200 ft 300 ft 50 psig 195 gpm 80 F Pressure Control Valve 30.94 psig

Pipe Roughness:

0.0008 ft

e pressure differential from supply to return nto the supply pipe "what if" games can be played ressure control valve, use of different pumps, etc.