Flow Resistance: A Design Guide for Engineers PDF

PREFACE

This book provides practical, applications-oriented data necessary for the design and evaluation of internal fluid system pressure losses. It was prepared for the practicing engineer, consultant, or designer who understands engineering and fluid flow fundamentals, but who needs an easy-to-use compilation of flow resistance coefficients in graphical or tabular form without the distraction of voluminous theory and text. It is based almost exclusively on material presented in the recently published Handbook of Hydraulic Resistance, Second Edition, by I. E. Idelchik, a translation from the Russian, which contains the most extensive compilation of pressure loss coefficients currently available in one volume.

The material in this book has been arranged in a convenient guidebook format so that it can be applied easily. The extensive coverage becomes self-evident when one reviews the hundreds of illustrations of flow passages and flow configurations. Most of these are sufficiently basic as to allow application to any shape of flow passage encountered in engineering practice. Each of the illustrations and flow coefficient graphs shows its limits of applicability. Source references are also shown, to allow for further data verification, if desired.

In any compilation of empirical data, the accuracy decreases with increasing complexity of the component, due to analysis of experimental uncertainties. This book is no exception. Thus, a good rule to follow is to check more than one source, if possible.

Since this guidebook is based on a Russian sourcebook, the symbols and nomenclature differ somewhat from U.S. practice. This, however, should provide no impediment to using the material, because the pictorial representations are quite clear and easy to follow. The nondimensionality of the pressure loss coefficients and the governing parameters allow their use in any suitable system of units.

Any work of this nature is subject to editorial or translation errors as well as data reporting errors. The publisher and I would be most grateful to the readers and users of this book for information on such items.

I would like to express my gratitude to Professor I. E. Idelchik, who passed away in 1987 after spending a lifetime in the theoretical and experimental investigation of fluid mechanics. For myself and many of my colleagues in the engineering profession, his name is synonymous with the concept of hydraulic resistance.

Author: I.E. Idelchik