Determination of Incompressible Flow Friction in Smooth Circular and Noncircular Passages: A Generalized Approach Including Validation of the Nearly Century Old Hydraulic Diameter Concept

It has been demonstrated conclusively that the widely observed differences in data for frictional pressure coefficient between circular and noncircular passages derive from the inseparably connected effects of transition and the choice of a length scale. A relatively simple approach, the critical friction method (CFM), has been developed and when applied to triangular, rectangular, and concentric annular passages, the reduced data lie with remarkable consistency on the circular tube relations. In accordance with the theory of dynamical similarity, it has also been shown that noncircular duct data can be reduced using the hydraulic diameter or any arbitrarily defined length scale. The proposed method is what is needed to reconcile such data with those for circular tubes. With the hydraulic diameter, the critical friction factor almost converges to a universal value for all passages and the correction is simply that required to account for the difference in critical Reynolds number. By contrast, with any other linear parameter, two corrections are needed to compensate for variations in critical friction factor and Reynolds number. Application of the method to roughened passages is discussed.