Fluid Mechanics
Pipe System Flow Distribution.
Piping systems are needed in a variety of applications such as water pumping and gas distribution in homes, heating and air conditioning, as well as other refrigeration systems, and in general, in any system that requires the transportation of a fluid. Given the varied application of piping systems, its study is of great importance, and numerical methods are a tool that allows the study of the distribution of flow in the pipeline network by applying the law of continuity in the nodes and energy balance in the cycles and pseudo cycles; taking into account the losses that are generated by friction, as well as the lost generates in the valves, accessories and any element present in the system. For its part, the EPANET program is a software of hydraulic simulations that allows a more didactic way to obtain the distribution of flows, thus highlighting its calculation potential.
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Therefore, this project from my university course Fluid Mechanics III was about the calculation of the flow distribution in two different pipeline systems, using the Linear Method, the Hardy Cross Method and the EPANET software. The dimensions of the free surface, the coefficient of loss of each valve, temperature, operating curve of the hydraulic pump, among other properties were taken into account.