Pressure Drop Calculations

Unless you are an experienced engineer with technical knowledge regarding piping systems, you should not conduct pressure drop calculations on your own. This is due to the fact that the process involves using various specific formula and considering certain factors that are crucial to achieving an accurate result.

That said, it’s better to leave it in the hands of an expert. This is where we come in. To come up with an accurate calculation and help you understand the process, here are the procedures we normally follow:

1. Once you contact us, we will try to ask for the details regarding your project so that we will be able to figure out which factors we have to consider for the calculation.
2. After we both come to an agreement, we will then send an inspection team on your site to inspect your piping system and other facilities in your building that connect to that specific system. They will also ask you some questions to obtain more details and information regarding your project. During this process, we will ask for the full specifications, so we can render accurate pressure drop calculations.
3. After gathering enough information, the pressure drop calculation process begins. However, keep in mind that pressure drop calculation isn’t just a single process. It’s actually a series of calculations with several different factors involved. Due to that, it will take time before our engineers can complete the entire process. 
4. Once the entire calculation process is completed, we will then let you see the results. Additionally, our expert engineers will provide you with expert recommendations regarding your piping system. This way, you can ensure that you will be able to have a highly efficient system installed in your building.

Our pressure drop calculation will involve a series of calculations in your piping system depending on a variety of factors. By including these factors in the calculation, we at Nearby Engineers New York Engineers can determine the overall pressure drop in your system.

In order to accurately calculate the pressure drop in a pipe, we need to compute the pressure drop for each item which can cause a change in pressure. However, in order for us to calculate the friction loss in a pipe, we will calculate the friction factor which we’re going to use in the Darcy-Weisbach equation. This will allow us to determine friction loss.

With accurate pressure drop calculations, you will be able to come up with an efficient piping system throughout your building.

But in case you’re wondering, accurately calculating pressure drops in your piping system matter because the available pressure should be greater than the combined pressure drop of all the parts in the system.

If there’s too little pressure, there would not be enough fluid to pass through all of the pipes. Due to this, we only make sure to provide you with accurate pressure drop calculations to ensure that the flow of liquid throughout your piping system is stable. This will also help you prevent having an excess amount of back pressure.

At Nearby Engineers New York Engineers , we consider certain factors to help us calculate the overall pressure difference throughout your system. These factors include:

• Pressure loss due to elevation variations
• Friction between the pipe’s wall and the fluid
• Friction loss when fluid passes through any fitting
• Pressure gain due to the addition of fluid head
• Friction between the fluid’s adjacent layers

By calculating friction loss, we will then consider factors like the change in elevation, the addition of a pump head, and fitting losses. This way, we can be able to come up with an accurate pressure drop calculation in the pipe. We normally consider these sections:

Calculating friction loss

We have to do a calculation of each of the items necessary for determining friction loss. With the use of advanced software, our expert engineers can calculate friction loss with the help of the Darcy-Weisbach equation which is considered the standard for calculating non-compressible fluids.

Calculating pipe fitting loss

If your piping system has long pipes, your fitting losses will mostly be insignificant with regard to your pipe’s overall pressure drop. However, local losses like the ones from a partially open valve tend to be a major loss. 

We are able to measure a specific fitting loss with the help of real-world experimental data which we analyze to determine a K factor for calculating the fitting loss. This is because it normally varies with the velocity of the fluid which passes through it.

Then again, we always use advanced software solutions that include fitting losses in our pressure drop calculations as they come with lots of industry standard K factors for valves and fittings of different types and sizes.

Calculating pipe component loss

Various components, such as chillers or heat exchangers, should be modeled in a piping system. Some of them end up introducing a known fixed pressure loss. In most cases, however, the pressure drop would vary with the flow rate which passes through the component.

Calculating pressure loss due to variations in elevatio

Our pressure drop calculations with regard to elevation variations will depend on certain factors. If the start of the pipe has a lower elevation than its end, then there will be additional pressure loss apart from friction and other losses. This is due to the increase in elevation.

Meanwhile, if a pipe’s start is elevated higher than its end, there will be additional pressure gain due to the decrease in elevation.

After the said factors are calculated, an overall pressure drop calculation follows after. This is where we at Nearby Engineers New York Engineers enter the picture.

By availing of our pressure drop calculation services, we can assure you that the results we provide are accurate by using specific equations and advanced software designed for such task.