The practical significance of fittings loss In laminar flow design

Efficient design of pumped piping systems requires accurate prediction of the losses that arisef rom pipe fittings,s ucha s valves.T his is only possibleif reliable lossc oefficientd ataa rea vailable. In many industrial settings,t his situation is exacerbatedb y the necessityt o use less water, increasing process fluid concentration, resulting in laminar flow designs becoming more common. Whilst reliable loss coefficient data are available for turbulent flow, there is very little for laminar flow. The objective of this paper is to show that laminar flow fittings losses become much more prominent in laminar flow design.P reviousw ork on the measuremenot f loss coefficient data is reviewed.U sing a practical design example,i t is shown that fittings lossesp resenti n fundamentallyd ifferent ways in laminar and turbulent flow, and that laminar flow fittings headlossi s a significanti ssue,f rom both the design and operational perspectivesT.h e paucityo f laminarf low designi nformationo n fittings lossesi s a significanti mpedimentt o efficient design, and it is important that this issue is addressed.