Calculating Frictional Pressure Loss in a Pipeline

A step-by-step procedure to calculate frictional pressure losses in a pipeline for single-phase incompressible flow using a hand calculation, and coding it in Excel VBA.

July 28, 2019

By Brandon Tolbert

The Way Ahead

In engineering, fluid flow and programming is a big deal. A thorough understanding of fluid flow fundamentals is a requirement for any mechanical engineer. Whether you are sizing a pump for a pipeline, designing a heat exchanger, or trying to alleviate bottlenecks in pipeline gathering systems, fluid flow shows up in many cases in our profession. I want to demonstrate a step-by-step procedure to calculate frictional pressure losses in a pipeline for single-phase incompressible flow using a hand calculation. Then I will demonstrate how to code this in excel VBA so the process is repeatable for different cases.

The sample code is presented below:

'Gives the pressure gradient in psi/ft in a pipeline

'Uses Oil and Gas Units

Function PressureLossgradbbl(Q, D, SG, u, e)

'Q: flow rate, bbl/day

'D: pipeline diameter, in

'SG: specific gravity

'u: viscosity, sp

'e: roughness, in

g = 32.2

A = WorksheetFunction.Pi() / 4 * D ^ 2

Re = Reynoldsbbl(SG, Q, D, u)

f = FrictionFactor(Re, e, D)

'Darcy Weasback Equation in psi/ft

PressureLossgradbbl = 0.433 * SG * (0.00105) * f * (1 / D) * ((Q / A) ^ 2) / (2 * g)

End Function

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

'Reynolds number for pipeline flow

Function Reynoldsbbl(SG, Q, D, u)

'SG: Specific Gravity

'Q: Flow rate,(bbl/day)

'D: Diameter, in

'u: viscosity, cp

Reynoldsbbl = 92.35 * (SG * Q) / (D * u)

End Function

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

'Friction Factor

Function FrictionFactor(Re, e, D)

'Re: Reynolds Number

'e: roughness, in

'laminar flow or turbulent('Swamee Jain Friction Factor)?

If Re < 2100 Then

FrictionFactor = 64 / Re

Else

A = e / (3.7 * D)

b = 5.74 / (Re ^ 0.9)

FrictionFactor = 0.25 / (WorksheetFunction.Log10(A + b) ^ 2)

End If

End Function

Calculating Frictional Pressure Loss in a Pipeline

A step-by-step procedure to calculate frictional pressure losses in a pipeline for single-phase incompressible flow using a hand calculation, and coding it in Excel VBA.

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