Piping Pressure Drop - Crane

Pipe and Fittings Flowing Pressure Drop Calculation based on Crane Flow of Fluids method

Calculate flowing pressure drop through any single stream pipe system comprising a wide range of pipe, fittings and valves of up to four different pipe sizes. Piping systems can be short and complex spools or very long pipelines.

Standard ASME B36.10 and B36.19 carbon steel pipe sizes are included and called up automatically but can also be manually entered by the user. Manual entry can easily be used to accommodate for piping from alternative materials and dimensions.

A full range of pipe fittings and valves from the Crane book are included plus a wide range of vendor valves is included and can be added to by the user.

Piping system inlet and outlet ends can readily be configured to represent gravity storage tanks, pressure vessels, pipe branches or pump/compressor nozzles.

Fluids transported can be any liquid or gas with the limitation that constant temperature and constant density are assumed. However, changes in temperature and density can easily be accommodated by using density and viscosity at the mean flowing pressure and temperature. For gases pressure drops can be up to 10% without correction or up to 40% if mean properties are used.

Fluid properties for water and for dry air are included and called up automatically but can also be manually entered.

The calculation by default calculates using a given upstream pressure and flowrate to find the resulting downstream pressure. However, it is also configured to automatically solve for the upstream pressure, flowrate or flowing velocity.

Key calculation formulas are presented using XLC so the methodology used is clear. A number of simple macros are used to calculate the Moody friction factor, various interpolated values and to iterate for some of the solutions. If prompted users should ‘enable macros’ when using the application.

Within the temperature and density limitations set by the Crane method the calculation accuracy has been verified against more complex calculation methods and has proven reliable over many years of use.

All user entry cells are highlighted to guide the user. The calculation is set up to be used with all worksheets protected (no password) in order to maintain the integrity of the calculations.

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