CFD-based Estimation of Friction Factor in Rough Pipes with Herschel-Bulkley Fluids

Abstract

The appropriate estimation of frictional losses in a pipeline system is essential. So far, little attention has been paid to determining the friction factors with non-Newtonian fluids, especially in rough pipes. This study aims at calculating the friction factor using validated three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics models in Ansys CFX. Steady-state computations are performed with three different incompressible Herschel-Bulkley fluids in rough pipes with relative roughness of the inner pipe surface ε = 0.0005 – 0.01. A power-law type bath gel as a test fluid is used for experiments to validate our numerical model. The numerical results are compared with the measured values and also with numerous existing friction factor estimation models with the help of generalization of the Reynolds number in the relevant engineering range of Re_gen = 100 – 40,000. This paper shows that the existing approximations can not accurately describe the friction factor with pseudoplastic fluids in rough pipes. On the contrary, in the case of Bingham plastic fluid, a new, explicit calculation relation is found in a unified form accepted by the literature.