Turbulent Pipe Flow-3D

Analysis Characteristics

• Steady-state
• 3D internal flow
• Turbulent
• Incompressible

Reference

White, F.M., Fluid Mechanics, McGraw-Hill (1986).

Problem Description

A three dimensional quarter section of a circular pipe is analyzed to verify the fluid flow and turbulence modeling in Autodesk Simulation CFD. The pressure drop is measured well downstream of the entrance length from 50 meters upstream of the outlet to the outlet:

Geometry and Boundary Conditions

Results

Analytical and numerical calculations of pressure drop are compared. The analytical expression for pressure drop from White (1986) is:

• is the Darcy friction factor
• is the mass flow
• is the pipe length across which is measured.

The Darcy friction factor is computed from the Blasius expression:

Substituting = 50m, = 2356.2 and Re = 15000 into the expressions above, the following results are computed:

	Benchmark	2013: Build 20120131	% Error	2014: Build 20130102	% Error
	4.02E5 Pa	384469.123 Pa	4.25	384554.423 Pa	4.23