INTERNAL FLOW

Teuku Mahlil
MK. Mekanika Fluida

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 Objectives
Have a deeper
understanding of laminar
and turbulent flow in pipes
and the analysis of fully
developed flow

Internal flows through pipes, elbows, tees, valves,

etc., as in this oil refinery, are found in nearly
every industry.
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
1 ■ INTRODUCTION
• Liquid or gas flow through pipes or ducts is commonly used in heating and cooling applications
and fluid distribution networks.
• The fluid in such applications is usually forced to flow by a fan or pump through a flow section.
• We pay particular attention to friction, which is directly related to the pressure drop and head
loss during flow through pipes and ducts.
• The pressure drop is then used to determine the pumping power requirement.

Circular pipes can withstand large pressure differences between the inside and the outside
without undergoing any significant distortion, but noncircular pipes cannot. 3
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
Theoretical solutions are obtained only for a few simple cases such as fully developed laminar flow
in a circular pipe.
Therefore, we must rely on experimental results and empirical relations for most fluid flow problems
rather than closed-form analytical solutions.

The value of the average velocity Vavg at some streamwise

cross-section is determined from the requirement that the
conservation of mass principle be satisfied

The average velocity for

incompressible flow in a circular
pipe of radius R

Average velocity Vavg is defined as the average speed

through a cross section. For fully developed laminar
pipe flow, Vavg is half of the maximum velocity.

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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
2 ■ LAMINAR AND Laminar flow is encountered when
highly viscous fluids such as oils flow
TURBULENT FLOWS in small pipes or narrow passages.

Laminar: Smooth streamlines and

highly ordered motion.
Turbulent: Velocity fluctuations and
highly disordered motion.
Transition: The flow fluctuates
between laminar and turbulent flows.
Most flows encountered in practice are
turbulent.

The behavior of colored

fluid injected into the
flow in laminar and
turbulent flows in a pipe.

Laminar and turbulent flow

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regimes of candle smoke.
Reynolds Number
The transition from laminar to turbulent flow At large Reynolds numbers, the inertial forces,
depends on the geometry, surface roughness, flow which are proportional to the fluid density and the
velocity, surface temperature, and type of fluid. square of the fluid velocity, are large relative to the
The flow regime depends mainly on the ratio of viscous forces, and thus the viscous forces cannot
inertial forces to viscous forces (Reynolds prevent the random and rapid fluctuations of the
number). fluid (turbulent).
At small or moderate Reynolds numbers, the
viscous forces are large enough to suppress these
fluctuations and to keep the fluid “in line” (laminar).

Critical Reynolds number, Recr: The Reynolds

number at which the flow becomes turbulent.
The value of the critical Reynolds number is
different for different geometries and flow
conditions.

The Reynolds number can be viewed as the ratio of inertial

forces to viscous forces acting on a fluid element. 6
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
For flow through noncircular pipes, the The hydraulic diameter Dh = 4Ac/p is defined such
Reynolds number is based on the that it reduces to ordinary diameter for circular tubes.
hydraulic diameter

For flow in a circular pipe:

In the transitional flow region of 2300  Re  10,000, the flow

switches between laminar and turbulent seemingly randomly. 7
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
3 ■ THE ENTRANCE REGION
Velocity boundary layer: The region of the flow in which the effects of the viscous shearing
forces caused by fluid viscosity are felt.
Boundary layer region: The viscous effects and the velocity changes are significant.
Irrotational (core) flow region: The frictional effects are negligible and the velocity remains
essentially constant in the radial direction.

The development of the velocity boundary layer in a pipe. The developed average velocity profile
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is parabolic in laminar flow, but somewhat flatter or fuller in turbulent flow.
Hydrodynamic entrance region: The region from the pipe inlet to the point at which the boundary
layer merges at the centerline.
Hydrodynamic entry length Lh: The length of this region.
Hydrodynamically developing flow: Flow in the entrance region. This is the region where the
velocity profile develops.
Hydrodynamically fully developed region: The region beyond the entrance region in which the
velocity profile is fully developed and remains unchanged.
Fully developed: When both the velocity profile the normalized temperature profile remain
unchanged.
Hydrodynamically fully developed

In the fully developed flow region of a pipe, the

velocity profile does not change downstream, and
thus the wall shear stress remains constant as well. 9
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
The pressure drop is higher in the entrance regions of a pipe, and the effect of the entrance region is
always to increase the average friction factor for the entire pipe.

The variation of wall

shear stress in the flow
direction for flow in a
pipe
from the entrance
region into the fully
developed region. 10
Entry Lengths
The hydrodynamic entry length is usually taken to be the distance from the pipe entrance to where the
wall shear stress (and thus the friction factor) reaches within about 2 percent of the fully developed value.

hydrodynamic entry The pipes used in practice are usually

length for laminar flow several times the length of the entrance
region, and thus the flow through the
pipes is often assumed to be fully
developed for the entire length of the
hydrodynamic entry pipe.
length for turbulent flow
This simplistic approach gives
reasonable results for long pipes but
sometimes poor results for short ones
since it underpredicts the wall shear
hydrodynamic entry length for stress and thus the friction factor.
turbulent flow, an approximation

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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
4 ■ LAMINAR FLOW IN PIPES
We consider steady, laminar, incompressible flow of a fluid with constant properties in the fully
developed region of a straight circular pipe.
In fully developed laminar flow, each fluid particle moves at a constant axial velocity along a
streamline and the velocity profile u(r) remains unchanged in the flow direction. There is no
motion in the radial direction, and thus the velocity component in the direction normal to the pipe
axis is everywhere zero. There is no acceleration since the flow is steady and fully developed.

Free-body diagram of a ring-shaped differential fluid element

of radius r, thickness dr, and length dx oriented coaxially with 12
a horizontal pipe in fully developed laminar flow.
 Boundary
conditions

Average velocity

Velocity
profile

Maximim velocity
at centerline
Free-body diagram of a fluid disk element
of radius R and length dx in fully developed 13
laminar flow in a horizontal pipe.
Pressure Drop and Head Loss

A pressure drop due to viscous effects represents an irreversible pressure loss, and it is called
pressure loss PL.

pressure loss for all types of Circular pipe, laminar

fully developed internal flows

Darcy friction
dynamic pressure Head loss
factor

In laminar flow, the friction factor is a function of the Reynolds number only and is independent of
the roughness of the pipe surface.
The head loss represents the additional height that the fluid needs to be raised by a pump in order 14
to overcome the frictional losses in the pipe.
 Horizontal pipe

Poiseuille’s law

For a specified flow rate, the pressure drop and thus the required
pumping power is proportional to the length of the pipe and the
viscosity of the fluid, but it is inversely proportional to the fourth
power of the diameter of the pipe.

The relation for pressure loss (and head loss) is one

of the most general relations in fluid mechanics, and
it is valid for laminar or turbulent flows, circular or
noncircular pipes, and pipes with smooth or rough The pumping power requirement for a laminar flow
surfaces. piping system can be reduced by a factor of 16 by 15
doubling the pipe diameter.
The pressure drop P equals the pressure loss PL in the case of a horizontal pipe, but this is not the
case for inclined pipes or pipes with variable cross-sectional area.
This can be demonstrated by writing the energy equation for steady, incompressible one-dimensional
flow in terms of heads as

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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
Effect of Gravity on Velocity
and Flow Rate in Laminar Flow

Free-body diagram of a ring-shaped differential fluid element of radius r, thickness dr, and
length dx oriented coaxially with an inclined pipe in fully developed laminar flow. 17
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
Laminar Flow in
Noncircular Pipes

The friction factor f relations

are given in Table 8–1 for fully
developed laminar flow in
pipes of various cross
sections. The Reynolds
number for flow in these pipes
is based on the hydraulic
diameter Dh = 4Ac /p, where
Ac is the cross-sectional area
of the pipe and p is its wetted
perimeter

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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
5 ■ TURBULENT FLOW IN PIPES
Most flows encountered in engineering practice are turbulent, and thus it is important to understand how
turbulence affects wall shear stress.
Turbulent flow is a complex mechanism dominated by fluctuations, and it is still not fully understood.
We must rely on experiments and the empirical or semi-empirical correlations developed for various
situations.
Turbulent flow is characterized by disorderly and rapid
fluctuations of swirling regions of fluid, called eddies,
throughout the flow.
These fluctuations provide an additional mechanism for
momentum and energy transfer.
In turbulent flow, the swirling eddies transport mass,
momentum, and energy to other regions of flow much
more rapidly than molecular diffusion, greatly enhancing
The intense mixing in turbulent flow mass, momentum, and heat transfer.
brings fluid particles at different As a result, turbulent flow is associated with much higher
momentums into close contact and values of friction, heat transfer, and mass transfer
thus enhances momentum transfer. coefficients

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Water exiting a tube: (a) laminar
flow at low flow rate, (b) turbulent
flow at high flow rate, and (c)
same as (b) but with a short
shutter exposure to capture
individual eddies.

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 The laminar component: accounts for the
friction between layers in the flow direction
The turbulent component: accounts for the
friction between the fluctuating fluid
particles and the fluid body (related to the
fluctuation components of velocity).

Fluctuations of the velocity component u with

time at a specified location in turbulent flow.

The velocity profile and the variation

of shear stress with radial distance
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for turbulent flow in a pipe.
 Turbulent Shear Stress

turbulent shear stress

Turbulent shear
stress

eddy viscosity or turbulent viscosity:

accounts for momentum transport by
turbulent eddies.
Total shear
stress

Fluid particle moving kinematic eddy viscosity or kinematic

upward through a turbulent viscosity (also called the
differential area dA as a eddy diffusivity of momentum).
result of the velocity 27
fluctuation v.
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
 mixing length lm: related to the average
size of the eddies that are primarily
responsible for mixing

Molecular diffusivity of
momentum v (as well as
µ) is a fluid property, and
its value is listed in fluid
handbooks.
Eddy diffusivity vt (as well
as µt), however, is not a
fluid property, and its
The velocity gradients at the value depends on flow
wall, and thus the wall shear conditions.
stress, are much larger for Eddy diffusivity vt
turbulent flow than they are decreases toward the wall,
for laminar flow, even though becoming zero at the wall.
the turbulent boundary layer Its value ranges from zero
is thicker than the laminar at the wall to several
one for the same value of thousand times the value
free-stream velocity. of the molecular diffusivity
in the core region. 28
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
Turbulent Velocity Profile

The very thin layer next to the wall where viscous effects are
dominant is the viscous (or laminar or linear or wall)
sublayer.
The velocity profile in this layer is very nearly linear, and the
flow is streamlined.
Next to the viscous sublayer is the buffer layer, in which
turbulent effects are becoming significant, but the flow is still
dominated by viscous effects.
Above the buffer layer is the overlap (or transition) layer,
also called the inertial sublayer, in which the turbulent effects
are much more significant, but still not dominant.
Above that is the outer (or turbulent) layer in the remaining
part of the flow in which turbulent effects dominate over
molecular diffusion (viscous) effects.

The velocity profile in fully developed pipe flow is parabolic in laminar flow, but much fuller in
turbulent flow. Note that u(r) in the turbulent case is the time-averaged velocity component in the
axial direction (the overbar on u has been dropped for simplicity). 29
 friction velocity

law of the wall

The thickness of the viscous sublayer is proportional to the kinematic

viscosity and inversely proportional to the average flow velocity.

Viscous length; it is used to nondimensionalize the distance y from

the surface.

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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
 Comparison of the law of the wall
and the logarithmic-law velocity
profiles with experimental data
for fully developed turbulent flow
in a pipe.
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
 Velocity
defect law

The deviation of velocity from the centerline value umax - u

is called the velocity defect.

The value n = 7 generally

approximates many flows in practice,
giving rise to the term one-seventh
power-law velocity profile.

Power-law velocity profiles for

fully developed turbulent flow
in a pipe for different
exponents, and its
comparison with the laminar
velocity profile. 32
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
The Moody
Chart and the
Colebrook equation (for smooth and rough pipes)
Colebrook
Equation The friction factor in fully developed turbulent pipe flow depends
on the Reynolds number and the relative roughness  /D.

Explicit Haaland equation

The friction factor is

minimum for a smooth
pipe and increases with 33
roughness.
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
 The Moody
Chart

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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
Observations from the Moody chart

• For laminar flow, the friction factor decreases with increasing Reynolds number, and it is independent
of surface roughness.
• The friction factor is a minimum for a smooth pipe and increases with roughness. The Colebrook
equation in this case ( = 0) reduces to the Prandtl equation.

• The transition region from the laminar to turbulent regime is indicated by the shaded area in the Moody
chart. At small relative roughnesses, the friction factor increases in the transition region and
approaches the value for smooth pipes.
• At very large Reynolds numbers (to the right of the dashed line on the Moody chart) the friction factor
curves corresponding to specified relative roughness curves are nearly horizontal, and thus the friction
factors are independent of the Reynolds number. The flow in that region is called fully rough turbulent
flow or just fully rough flow because the thickness of the viscous sublayer decreases with increasing
Reynolds number, and it becomes so thin that it is negligibly small compared to the surface roughness
height. The Colebrook equation in the fully rough zone reduces to the von Kármán equation.

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 In calculations, we should
make sure that we use the
actual internal diameter
of the pipe, which may be
different than the nominal
diameter.

At very large Reynolds numbers, the friction factor

curves on the Moody chart are nearly horizontal, and
thus the friction factors are independent of the
Reynolds number. See Fig. A–12 for a full-page
moody chart.

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 Types of Fluid Flow Problems
1. Determining the pressure drop (or head
loss) when the pipe length and diameter
are given for a specified flow rate (or
velocity)
2. Determining the flow rate when the pipe
length and diameter are given for a
specified pressure drop (or head loss)
The three types of problems
3. Determining the pipe diameter when the encountered in pipe flow.
pipe length and flow rate are given for a
specified pressure drop (or head loss)

To avoid tedious
iterations in head
loss, flow rate, and
diameter calculations,
these explicit relations
that are accurate to
within 2 percent of the
Moody chart may be
used. 38
Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu
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Teaching Material from Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications; Third Edition in SI Units; Yunus A. Cengel, John M. Cimbala; McGraw-Hill, 2014. Lecture slides by: Mehmet Kanoglu