Fanning Equation

For a single phase, fully developed flow in a pipe, the shear stress at the fluid-solid boundary
is balanced by the pressure drop (see Figure 1). A one-dimensional force balance equation of
this flow can be written as:
(1)

where S is the pipe cross-sectional area and A is the pipe surface area. Here, τ w is the wall
shear stress which is dependent upon the following parameters
 fluid velocity
 fluid properties, namely, density and viscosity
 pipe diameter
 surface roughness of the interior pipe wall
The first two parameters are due to the nature and the flow characteristics of the fluid itself.
The last two depend on the physical geometry of the pipe. The stress can be expressed as
(2)

where f is the Fanning friction factor.

Friction Factor (f)
The friction factor, f, is a dimensionless factor that depends primarily on the velocity u,
diameter D, density ρ, and viscosity η. It is also a function of wall roughness which depends
on the size ε, spacing ε' and shape of the roughness elements characterized by ε''. ε and ε'
have the dimension of length whereas ε'' is dimensionless. Since the friction factor is
dimensionless, the quantities that it depends upon should appear in the dimensionless form.
In this case, the terms u, D, ρ and η can be rearranged as uDη/η which is the Reynolds
Number, Re. For the characteristic roughness factors (ε and ε'), it may be made dimensionless
by dividing these terms by D (the term ε/D is called the relative roughness). Hence, the friction
factor can be written in a general form as:
(3)

From this we see that the friction factor of pipes will be the same of their Reynolds number,
roughness patterns, and relative roughness are the same. For a smooth pipe, the roughness
term is neglected and the magnitude of the friction factor is determined by fluid Reynolds
number alone.

Figure 1. Forces acting on the fluid during single phase steady flow in a pipe.
Fanning Friction Factor
The friction factor is found to be a function of the Reynolds number and the relative
roughness. Experimental results of Nikuradse (1933) who carried out experiments on fluid
flow in smooth and rough pipes showed that the characteristics of the friction factor were
different for laminar and turbulent flow. For laminar flow (Re < 2100), the friction factor was
independent of the surface roughness and it varied linearly with the inverse of Reynolds
number. In this case, the friction factor of the Fanning equation can be calculated using the
Hagen-Poiseuille equation (see Poiseuille Flow).
(4)

For turbulent flow, both Reynolds number and the wall roughness influence the friction
factor. At high Reynolds number, the friction factor of rough pipes becomes constant,
dependent only on the pipe roughness. For smooth pipes, Blasius (1913) has shown that the
friction factor (in a range of 3,000 < Re < 100,000) may be approximated by:
(5)

However, for Re > 105, the following equation is found to be more accurate:
(6)

and this was used by Taitel and Dukler (1976).

Reference: http://www.thermopedia.com/content/789/