Minor Losses in Pipes and Ducts — Lesson 4

In making beer, the ingredients  undergo many processing steps before the final product is delivered: milling, mashing, boiling, cooling, fermentation, filtration, carbonation and bottling. This means that the fluid moves through many containers, pipes, bends, filters and so on.

Similarly, when natural gas is transported it goes through bends, valves, contractions and other components.

All the components of a piping system lead to pressure losses that are not strictly due to frictional effects. These losses are categorized as minor losses, and they are directly connected to flow separation and formation of secondary flows. In this lesson we will explore how to take the different components into account and estimate their contribution to the head loss.

Alternate video link.

Here are the accompanying handout slides for this lesson.