Faculty of Engineering and

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Fluid Mechanics for

Mechanical Engineering
Viscous Flow in Ducts

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SEQUENCE OF CHAPTER 8

Introduction
Objectives
8.1 Flows Characteristics in Pipe
8.2 Fully Developed Laminar Flow
8.3 Fully Developed Turbulent Flow
8.4 Friction Loss
8.5 Minor Loss
Summary

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Introduction
• Now, we cover fluid with internal viscous friction
attributed by the viscosity properties and friction
between the flows and any adjacent walls.

• We will look into how to analyse the laminar and

turbulent pipe flows, and to calculate friction losses
due to pipe walls as well as pressure losses due to
fitting components such as valves, junctions, faucets
and flow measurement apparatus.

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Objectives
At the end of this chapter, you should be able to :
 understand and differentiate between laminar and
turbulent pipe flows in terms of velocity profile and
pressure distribution,
 use relevant formulae and charts to calculate friction and
other minor losses in pipes,
 calculate flow-rate from pressure difference in obstacle
based measurement apparatus.

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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

• This type of flow is also known as internal flow where the pipe
is assumed to be completely filled with the fluid.
• The fluid motion is generated by pressure difference between
two points and is constrained by the pipe walls. The direction
of the flow is always from a point of high pressure to a point of
low pressure.
• If the fluid does not completely fill the pipe, such as in a
concrete sewer, the existence of any gas phase generates an
almost constant pressure along the flow path.
• If the sewer is open to atmosphere, the flow is known as open-
channel flow and is out of the scope of this chapter .Hence this
chapter only concentrates on internal pipe flows only.

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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

• Flow in pipes can be divided into two different regimes, i.e.
laminar and turbulence.
• The experiment to differentiate between both regimes was
introduced in 1883 by Osborne Reynolds (1842–1912), an
English physicist who is famous in fluid experiments in early
days.

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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

• The Reynolds’ experiment is depicted in Fig. 1.

Dye laminar
D
transitional
Q A
turbulent

uA
turbulent

transitional

laminar

Figure 1 Experiment for Differentiating Flow Regime

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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

• From Fig. 1, the dye is used to mark the flow path of the fluid. In
order to demonstrate the transition between laminar and
turbulent regime, the - Q is varied.
• For a constant diameter pipe, the cross sectional area is also
constant. Thus, by virtue of mass conservation, the velocity V is
directly proportional to Q.
• For laminar regime, the flow velocity is kept small, thus the
generated flow is very smooth which is shown as a straight tiny
line formed by the dye.
• When the flow velocity is increased, the flow becomes slightly
unstable such that it contains some temporary velocity fluctuation
of fluid molecules and this mark the transition regime between
both regimes. Then, the velocity can be increased further so that
the fluid flow is completely unstable and the dye is totally mixed
with the surrounding fluid. This phenomenon is known as
turbulence.
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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

• This graph clearly shows a smooth velocity of laminar flow and a
fluctuated velocity for turbulent flow.
• Clearly, one of the main critical parameters that determines the
flow regimes is the velocity.
• This parameter, together with fluid properties, namely density 
and dynamic viscosity , as well as pipe diameter D, forms the
dimensionless Reynolds number, that is

VD
Re 


• From Reynolds’ experiment, he suggested that Re < 2000 for

laminar flows and Re > 4000 for turbulent flows. The range of Re
between 2000 and 4000 represents transitional flows.

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Example 1
Consider a water flow in a pipe having a diameter of D = 20 mm which is intended to fill a
0.35 liter container. Calculate:
(a) the minimum time required if the flow is laminar,
(b) the maximum time required if the flow is turbulent.
Use density  = 998 kg/m3 and dynamic viscosity  = 1.1210–3 kg/ms.
Solution:
(a) For laminar flow, use Re =VD/ = 2100:

V 
2100 2100 1.12  10 3


 0.118 m s

D  998 0.020
Hence, the minimum time t is
V 4V
t 
Q D 2V



4 0.35  10 3   9.45s
  0.02  0.118 
2

(b) For turbulent flow, use Re = VD/ = 4000:

4000 40001.12  10 3 
V   0.224 m s
D  998 0.020
Hence, the minimum time t is
V 4V
t 
Q D 2V



4 0.35  10 3   4.96s
  0.02   0.224
2

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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

• In many cases of pipe flows, it may begin from a tank as shown in
Fig. 2.
• The common velocity profile for laminar pipe flow is parabolic.
However, at a position in the pipe where the fluid just exits from the
reservoir, the velocity profile is almost uniform.
• This uniform flow can also be seen as a representation of inviscid flow
since the fluid molecules has no relative motion from one to another.
The transition from the initially uniform flow and a fully developed
parabolic occurred in the entrance region. In this region, the flow is
formed by a mixture between the following two regions:
1. Inviscid core, where the velocity profile is uniform and
the viscous effect is negligible,
2. Boundary layer, where it allows velocity variation from pipe walls
with no-slip condition to the core and the viscous effect is
dominant.

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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

Entrance Fully
region flow developed flow

Inviscid core Boundary layer

D

r
x Figure 2 Velocity Profiles at the
Entrance and Fully
e
Developed Regions
Fully developed Developing
flow flow

p Entrance Fully
region flow developed flow
Entrance flow
pressure loss p p
  constant
x 

Figure 3 Pressure p

Distribution in a

Horizontal Pipe x
e 12
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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

• The entrance region can be represented by entrance length e, which can be
empirically determined by the following formulae for both regimes:

Laminar: e
 0.06 Re
D

Turbulent: e  4.4(Re) 6
1

D
• Due to different boundary layer thickness in the inviscid core, the pressure
distribution behaves non-linearly in this region and the pressure slope is not
constant as shown in Fig. 3. However, after the flow is fully developed, the
slope becomes constant and the pressure drop p is directly caused only by
viscous effect.
• By projecting the graph back towards the tank, we can estimate the pressure
drop due to entrance flow. Hence, by using the Bernoulli equation with
losses, the pressure value at all position along the same pipe can be
calculated.

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Flow Characteristics in Pipes

• From Fig. 3, we can also deduce that there are two types of pressure loss;
the first is known as friction or major loss and is caused by friction which
reduces the fluid pressure linearly with gradient -p/ , and the second is
known as minor loss and is generated by sudden change in flow direction
as in the entrance flow.
• The friction loss is proportional to the pipe length, while minor losses can
be emulated by sudden pressure drop. In this case, we can summarise
that minor losses represent pressure losses in developing flow which is
experiencing disturbances and changes in internal pipe geometry.
• Now, we can apply the modified Bernoulli equation with head loss hL
between two points along a horizontal pipe of length  with constant
diameter D. The modified Bernoulli equation can be written as
p1 V12 p2 V22
  z1    z 2  hL
g 2 g 2

• For constant diameter and horizontal pipe, V1 = V2 and z1= z2. Then, the
head loss can be formulated as h  p1  p2  p
L
g g
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Fully Developed Laminar Flow

• Head loss due to friction hf,

 V2
hf  f
D 2g (11)

• f is known as the Darcy friction factor. For laminar flow, it is

defined as
64 8 w
f  
Re V 2

(12)

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Fully Developed Turbulent Flow

• In turbulent pipe flow, we can anticipate that the velocity profile and the
shear stress will be somewhat similar to the second graph of Fig. 7. At any
point in vicinity of the wall the velocity is still small and the flow is locally
laminar.
• However, towards the centreline, the flow becomes turbulent but stable.
If we relate this pattern with the velocity gradient , we will have a non-
linear distribution of shear stress which is maximum at the wall but
reduces significantly towards the centreline.

Figure 7 Turbulent Velocity Profile and Shear Stress Distribution

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Fully Developed Turbulent Flow

• From Fig. 7, we can see that the velocity gradient u/r near the
wall is greater compared to the gradient for laminar flow, thus
the wall shear stress w is very high but still finite.
• However, near the pipe centreline, the gradient becomes smaller
which forms a nearly inviscid profile. Hence, we can deduce that
a highly turbulent flow can be approximated by an inviscid flow
with a finite friction factor.
• Therefore, we can divide a general turbulent flow into three
regions:

1. Viscous sub-layer, the flow is locally laminar and the laminar

shear stress is dominant,
2. Outer layer, the flow is locally turbulent and the turbulent shear
stress is dominant,
3. Overlap layer, transition between the above two layers..

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Friction Loss
• For laminar flow in rough pipes, the friction factor f is dominantly caused
by viscous friction due to molecular interaction. Hence, we can use
Eq. (12) for all occasions involving laminar flow.
• However, for turbulent flow, the profile at the core of the pipe is close to
inviscid profile and the friction factor f is much due to the existence of
viscous sublayer near the wall.
• Thus, if the wall surface is rougher, the resulting viscous sublayer is
thicker. The roughness of a pipe is measured in length which is defined
as equivalent roughness . The values of  for typical pipes are listed in
Table 1.

Table 1 Equivalent Roughness for Typical New Pipes 18

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Friction Loss
• For turbulent flow, the friction factor f can be obtained by using the
graphical representation of the Colebrook formula which is the Moody
chart as shown in Figure 11

Table 11: The moody chart

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Friction Loss
• In some texts, the same experimental data are refitted to a simpler form of
correlation which can be solved directly with 2% error. This correlation is
known as the Haaland formula which takes the following form:
1   / D 1.11 6.9 
 1.8 log    
f  3 . 7  Re 
• After knowing the friction factor f for the pipe, we can calculate the major
head loss due to friction for a fluid flowing in the pipe. If fluid properties,
 and , pipe length  and relative roughness of the pipe wall  are all
known, provided that other variables are also known, the problem can be
one of the following types:
1. Determine pressure loss p or friction head loss hf,
2. Determine volumetric flow-rate Q or average velocity V,
3. Determine pipe diameter D.
After knowing f, then hf can be calculated via Eq. (11),
 V2
hf  f
D 2g
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Minor Losses
• Apart from major loss due to friction, there are also other forms of
losses which are caused by changes in internal pipe geometries and
by fitted components. These types of losses are referred to as
minor losses. There are four types of minor losses:
1. Sudden or gradual flow expansion and flow contraction,
2. Entrance and exit flows to and from reservoirs or tanks,
3. Bends, elbows, junctions and other fittings,
4. Valves, including those completely opened or partially closed.

• Minor loss is denoted by hm and is expressed as proportional to the

velocity head, i.e.
V2
hm  K
2g
where K is the loss coefficient for each case. This coefficient K can either
be derived analytically or taken from experimental or commercial data.
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Minor Losses
• If we have a number of fittings along a pipe, the total head loss is
be the summation of friction head loss, or major loss, with all
minor losses, i.e.

V2  
htotal  h f   hm   f   K 
2g  d 

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Example 5
• Water flows from the ground floor to the second level in a three-storey
building through a 20 mm diameter pipe (drawn-tubing,  = 0.0015 mm) at
a rate of 0.75 liter/s. The layout of the whole system is illustrated in
Figure below. The water flows out from the system through a faucet with
an opening of diameter 12.5 mm. Calculate the pressure at point (1).

3.5 m 3.5 m

(2)
Faucet
K2
3.5 m
1.75 m Globe valve
open, K  10

3.5 m

Q (1) Threaded elbows 90

K  1.5
5.25 m

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Example 5
Solution:
From the modified Bernoulli equation, we can write
1 1
p1  V12  gz1  p 2  V22  gz 2  ghL
2 2
In this problem, p2 = 0, z1 = 0. Thus,
p1  
1 2
2
V2  V12   gz2  g  h1  hm 

The velocities in the pipe and out from the faucet are respectively

V1 
Q
 

4Q 4 0.75  10 3  2.387 m s
A1 D12   0.020
2

V2 
Q
 

4Q 4 0.75  10 3 
 6.631m s
A2 D22   0.012
2

The Reynolds number of the flow is

Vd (998)(2.387)(0.020)
Re    42,546
 1.12  10 3
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Example 5
Solution:
The roughness d = 0.0015/20 = 0.000075. From the Moody chart,   0.022
(or,0.02191 via the Colebrook formula). The total length of the pipe is
  5.25  4(3.5)  1.75  21m
Hence, the friction head loss is
 V12 21 2.387 2
hf  f  (0.022)  6.71m
d 2g 0.02 2(9.81)
The total minor loss is
V12 2.387 2
hm   K   4(1.5)  10  2  5.23m
2g 2(9.81)
h  h f  hm  6.71  5.23  11 .94m
Therefore, the pressure at (1) is
p1   V22  V12   gz 2  g  h1  hm 
1
2
  998  6.6312  2.387 2    998 9.81 3.5  3.5
1
2
 998 9.81 6.71  5.23
 205kPa 25
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Summary
This chapter has summarized on the aspect below:
– You should be able to understand the concept of
viscous flow in pipes and to be able to differentiate
a laminar flow against a turbulent flow.
– In addition, you should also be able to calculate
major and minor losses for both types of flow in
order to calculate the overall pressure or head loss
in a pipe system.

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Thank You

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