Friction Factor Formulae
In fluid flow, it is a common problem to calculate the pressure drop in an established piping network. Once the friction factor, f, is known, it becomes easier to handle different pipe-flow problems, viz. calculating the pressure drop for evaluating pumping costs or to find the flow-rate in a piping network for a given pressure drop. It is usually extremely difficult to arrive at exact analytical solution to calculate the friction factor associated with flow of non-Newtonian fluids and therefore explicit approximations are used to calculate it. Once the friction factor has been calculated the pressure drop can be easily determined for a given flow by the Darcy–Weisbach equation:
where:
- is the frictional head loss (SI units: m)
- is the Darcy friction factor (SI units: Dimensionless)
- is the pipe length (SI units: m)
- is the gravitational acceleration (SI units: m/s²)
- is the pipe diameter (SI units: m)
- is the mean fluid velocity (SI units: m/s)
Read more about this topic: Bingham Plastic
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