Determination of Optimum Pressure loss and Flow Distribution at Pipe Bifurcation and Trifurcation
Basappa Meti1, Nagaraj Sitaram2
1Basappa Meti, Research Scholar, Jain University, Bangalore-562112, India.
2Nagaraj Sitaram, Professor and Head, Department of Civil Engineering, Sayanad Sagar College of Engineering Bangalore, India.
Manuscript received on April 17, 2016. | Revised Manuscript received on April 24, 2016. | Manuscript published on April 25, 2016. | PP: 9-15 | Volume-4 Issue-4, April 2016. | Retrieval Number: B1052124215
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Abstract: The friction losses in pipe junction is important in many situations like flow distribution in pipes and penstocks. The design of a efficient branching with desired flow distribution having minimum hydraulic loss need to be developed. An experimental approach is selected to evaluate the friction losses at the junction of the pipe branching ‘K = -P’. It is desired to know at what split flow ratio and pipe junction geometry the pressure loss at junction is minimum. The paper focuses in determination of pressure losses and flow distribution at pipe branching using the experimentally at various flow rates and pressures. The complexity of pressure drop at pipe junction is high particularly at high Reynolds number. An attempt has been made to study experimentally, the pressure loss at pipe bifurcation and trifurcation with three different angles of branching 20, 25 and 30. The pipe line pressure is varied between 50 KPa to 200 KPa. The experimental data and analysis for 25.4mm main and 19.05 mm bifurcation and trifurcation pipes show the correlation between pressure loss coefficient (K) with a split flow ratios 1 2 Q Q , Q Q3 , 1 4 Q Q . It is found that the turbulence at pipe junction, angle of branching, and diameter ratio are mainly responsible for losses and separation of flow. The overall bifurcation and trifurcation loss coefficient (K) and individual branch loss coefficients (K12, K13, K14) have been computed and correlation between pressure ratio, split flow ratio and loss coefficients have been developed. The optimum value of overall pressure loss coefficients are obtained for different flow ratios. The experimental findings also suggest that the head loss at the bifurcation and trifurcation junction will be minimum when nearly equal discharge flow in branched pipes. New correlations have been developed. The experiments conducted at different pipe line pressures also indicate that the overall bifurcation and trifurcation loss coefficient (K) is high for higher line pressures.
Keywords: Bifurcation and trifurcation, split flow ratio, optimum loss co-efficient.