Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications
3rd Edition
Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala
McGraw-Hill, 2014
Fluid Mechanics
CHAPTER 8
Tutorial – Part 1
School of Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Theoretical questions
1. Why are liquids usually transported in circular pipes?
• Ans: Liquids are usually transported in circular pipes because pipes with a
circular cross section can withstand large pressure differences between the inside
and the outside without undergoing any significant distortion.
2. How is the hydrodynamic entry length defined for flow in a pipe? Is the entry length
longer in laminar or turbulent flow?.
• Ans: The region from the tube inlet to the point at which the boundary layer
merges at the centerline is called the hydrodynamic entrance region, and the
length of this region is called hydrodynamic entry length. The entry length is much
longer in laminar flow than it is in turbulent flow.
3. How does surface roughness affect the pressure drop in a pipe if the flow is
turbulent? What would your response be if the flow were laminar?
• Ans: In turbulent flow, tubes with rough surfaces have much higher friction factors
than the tubes with smooth surfaces, and thus surface roughness leads to a much
larger pressure drop in turbulent pipe flow. In the case of laminar flow, the effect of
surface roughness on the friction factor and pressure drop is negligible.
4. What is the physical mechanism that causes the friction factor to be higher in
turbulent flow?
• Ans: In turbulent flow, it is the turbulent eddies due to enhanced mixing that cause
the friction factor to be larger. This turbulent mixing leads to a much larger wall
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shear stress, which translates into larger friction factor.
5. Consider laminar flow of air in a circular pipe with perfectly smooth surfaces. Do you
think the friction factor for this flow is zero? Explain?
• Ans: During laminar flow of air in a circular pipe with perfectly smooth surfaces, the
friction factor is not zero because of the no-slip boundary condition, which must hold
even for perfectly smooth surfaces.
6. The effect of rounding of a pipe inlet on the loss coefficient is (a) negligible, (b)
somewhat significant, or (c) very significant.?.
• Ans: The effect of rounding of a pipe inlet on the loss coefficient is (c) very
significant. 𝐾𝐿 =0.03
7. The effect of rounding of a pipe exit on the loss coefficient is (a) negligible, (b)
somewhat significant, or (c) very significant.
• Ans: (a) negligible. At any pipe outlet, all the kinetic energy is wasted, and the minor
loss coefficient is equal to 𝛼.
8. How is head loss related to pressure loss? For a given fluid, explain how you would
convert head loss to pressure loss.
• Ans: The head loss is related to pressure loss by ℎ𝐿 = 𝑃𝐿 /𝜌𝑔. For a given fluid, the
head loss can be converted to pressure loss by multiplying the head loss by the
acceleration of gravity and the density of the fluid. Thus, for constant density, head
loss and pressure drop are linearly proportional to each other
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Cal’s QUE 9
Solutions
The velocity profile in fully developed laminar flow in a circular pipe is given by
The velocity profile in
this case is given by
Comparing the two relations above gives the maximum velocity to be 𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒙= 4.00 m/s.
Then the average velocity and volume flow rate become
4
QUE 10
Review
Pressure loss for all Laminar or Turbulent ?
types of fully developed
Circular pipe,
internal flows
laminar
Head
loss, Colebrook equation
Major
Minor
loss
Explicit Haaland
First we calculate the average velocity equation
and the Reynolds number to determine
the flow regime The Moody Chart using Re and /D. 5
Data
First we calculate the average velocity and the
Reynolds number to determine the flow regime
which is greater than 4000.
Therefore, the flow is turbulent.
The relative roughness of the pipe
is
The friction factor can be determined from the Moody Check for stainless steel
chart, but to avoid the reading error, we determine it from moody chart
from the Colebrook equation using an equation solver
Friction factor = 0.01574
= 100.4 kPa 6
Part b: head loss
Note that if we want to find: 𝐷, ℎ𝐿 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑉ሶ in the Turbulent regime we can use the
Explicit Swamee – Jain equations in order to avoid tedious iterations
Part c: Pumping power
7
QUE 11
Data
The volume flow rate and the Reynolds number
in this case are
which is less than 2300. Therefore, the flow is laminar,
and the friction factor is
8
Then the pressure drop in the pipe and the required pumping power become
The power input determined is the mechanical power that needs to be
imparted to the fluid
9
QUE 12
The hydraulic diameter, the volume flow rate,
and the Reynolds number in this case are
which is greater than 4000. Therefore, the flow is turbulent. 10
The relative roughness of the pipe is The friction factor can be determined from the
Moody chart, but to avoid the reading error, we
determine it from the Colebrook equation using
an equation solver.
Friction factor = 0.02008
11
