Qualification of a Method to Calculate the Irrecoverable Pressure Loss in High Reynolds Number Piping Systems

High Reynolds number test data has recently been reported for both single and multiple piping elbow design configurations at earlier ASME Fluid Engineering Division Conferences. The data of these studies ranged up to a Reynolds number of 42 × 10⁶ which is significantly greater than that used to establish design correlations before the data was available. Many of the accepted design correlations, based on the lower Reynolds number data, date back as much as fifty years. The new data shows that these earlier correlations are extremely conservative for high Reynolds number applications. Based on the recent high Reynolds number information a new recommended method has been developed for calculating irrecoverable pressure losses in piping systems for design considerations such as establishing pump sizing requirements. This paper describes the recommended design approach and additional testing that has been performed as part of the qualification of the method. This qualification testing determined the irrecoverable pressure loss of a piping configuration that would typify a limiting piping section in a complicated piping network, i.e., multiple, tightly coupled, out-of-plane elbows in series under high Reynolds number flow conditions. The overall pressure loss measurements were then compared to predictions, which used the new methodology to assure that conservative estimates for the pressure loss (of the type used for pump sizing) were obtained. The recommended design methodology, the qualification testing and the comparison between the predictions and the test data are presented. A major conclusion of this study is that the recommended method for calculating irrecoverable pressure loss in piping systems is conservative yet significantly lower than predicted by early design correlations that were based on the extrapolation of low Reynolds number test data.