Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 7

7/25/2014 Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World

Home Blog Contents About Work With Me ERTAT Add-In Advertise Here Suggested Books Disclaimer

Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation


0
Written b y Christos Samaras on Thursday, 19 May 2011 at 19:26
Tw eet

1
Water Flow Meter My Engineering World

Follow +1
brinstrumentation.in/Enquire_Now

Leading Manufacturer & Supplier of + 48

0 Water Flow Meter at Best Price.


Follow @MyEnginWorld

Your e-mail address... Submit

RSS Feed Twitter Google Plus

Please Join Our New Linkedin Group

Hydraulic Vane
Pump
veljandenisondealer.com/Enquire_Now

Wide Range Of Hydraulic Vane


Pumps At Best Price. Corrosion
Resistant.

Problem description

Professional Excel Development


Colebrook & White equation is widely used for calculating the friction factor in turbulent flows. The equation is difficult to
be solved by hand, but with nowadays computers we can overcome this difficulty very fast. The equation is written

below:

Where:
f: friction factor [-]

: roughness [m]
Dh : hydraulic diameter - for pipes is equal to the internal diameter [m]

Re: Reynolds number [-]


Search this blog...
The Reynolds number is calculated by the following formula:

Top 10 Stories

http://www.myengineeringworld.net/2011/05/solutions-of-colebrook-white-equation.html 1/7
7/25/2014 Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World
Excel VBA Read And Write Text Files

VBA Macro To Open A PDF File

VBA Macro To Convert PDF Files Into Different Format


Where:
V: mean velocity of the flow in the pipe [m/s] Draw A Polyline In AutoCAD Using Excel VBA
L: pipe length [m]
Numerical Integration In Excel Using The Trapezoidal
: dynamic viscosity of the fluid [kg/(ms)]
Rule
: kinematic viscosity ( = /) [m/s]
: density of the fluid (kg/m) Welding Discontinuities X-ray Films

Open A Google Earth File (kmz) With Google Maps

Fatigue Analysis In Turbomachinery

Solutions

Open A PDF File With VBA

Here we will discuss about five different approaches to the above equation. The degree of accuracy differs for each
approach, as well as the level of difficulty.

1. Iteration process

If we rewrite the above equation, it will look like this:

By changing the values of friction factor we can find the solution using the trial and error method. However, this can
easily be done in an Excel worksheet using goal seek.

2. Swamee Jains equation

The Swamee Jains equation is used in order to find directly the friction factor in a full-flowing circular pipe. It is an
approximation of the Colebrook & Whites equation.

3. Haaland's equation

Haaland in 1983 simplified the Colebrook & Whites equation to the following equation:

4. Serghides' equations

The last two solutions are more complicated since they approach the problem with a set of equations. Serghides'
solution was based on Steffensen's method
. The solution involves the calculation of three intermediate values first and

then substituting those values into a final equation.

http://www.myengineeringworld.net/2011/05/solutions-of-colebrook-white-equation.html 2/7
7/25/2014 Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World

5. Goudar Sonnad's equations

Goudar Sonnads set of equations is the most complicated of all the solutions since there are a lot of intermediate
values that should be calculated before the final equation. This set of equations is given below:

Considering that the iteration process gives the most accurate results, I have developed an Excel workbook in order to

experiment on the other four solutions/methods. So, with this workbook you can try it yourself and see which approach
gives results that are closer to the iteration process results.

How to use it

http://www.myengineeringworld.net/2011/05/solutions-of-colebrook-white-equation.html 3/7
7/25/2014 Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World

In the first sheet (named Solutions) fill all the green cells and press the Solve Equation button. If the flow in the pipe
is turbulent, the sheet will automatically calculate the friction factor with the five different methods that described above.
If you press one of the buttons named Roughness, Diameter, Velocity or Viscosity you will be transferred to the

corresponding sheet. There you can play (loop calculation) with the corresponding parameter and see how the results
of five methods are affected from the parameters change. Furthermore, in each sheet there is also a chart which

depicts the results of your loops.

Downloads

This file can be opened with Excel 2007 or newer. For best results, go to File -> Options -> Formulas tab and put

Maximum Iteration = 30000 (max value is 32767) and Maximum Change = 0.00001 (or even smaller).

Read also

10 + 1 Ways To Find The Friction Factor In Pipes


Pressure Losses In Piping Systems
Friction Factor Function

Head And Pressure Losses In Pipes

Did you like this post? If yes, then share it with your friends. Thank you!

Tw eet 0 1

Categories: Articles

http://www.myengineeringworld.net/2011/05/solutions-of-colebrook-white-equation.html 4/7
7/25/2014 Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World

Christos Samaras
Mechanical Engineer (Ph.D. cand.), M.Sc. Cranfield University, Dipl.-Ing. Aristotle University, Thessaloniki - Greece.
Communication: tel. +30-6973513308, e-mail , Facebook , Twitter , Google+ and Linkedin. Full CV here.

Newer Post Home Older Post

16 Comments My Engineering World Login

Sort by Newest Share Favorite

Join the discussion

Eugene Fang 4 months ago


Thank you very much for this excel sheet
Reply Share

Christos Samaras Admin Eugene Fang 4 months ago


You 're welcome, my friend!
Reply Share

Otieno Otieno D 9 months ago


This is a nice one, it has helped me alot. Thanks alot Christos.
Reply Share

Christos Samaras Admin Otieno Otieno D 9 months ago


You 're welcome, Otieno! It's good to know that it was useful to someone.

Best Regards,
Christos
Reply Share

Bkash 9 months ago


Thanks mate... Much appreciated
Reply Share

Christos Samaras Admin Bkash 9 months ago


You 're welcome, my friend!

Kind Regards,
Christos
Reply Share

mike a year ago


how to solve the colebrook equation by just hand calculating? i find no way. any idea?
thanks.
Reply Share

Christos Samaras Admin mike a year ago


Mike, all these equations, as well the equations on the other post are in reality
approximations of Coolebrook-White formula. You cannot solve Coolebrook-
White formula by hand, but you can solve the other formulas by hand. And as
Wikipedia writes The Colebrook equation used to be solved numerically due to
its apparent implicit nature.
Reply Share

Vincent Carpenter Christos Samaras 6 months ago


Christos. Kindly note you can solve CW by hand, it just takes a while.
Typically three iterations are required if the first guesstimate is
reasonable.
Reply Share

Christos Samaras Admin Vincent Carpenter 6 months ago


Vincent, thats true, but, what I was implying in the previous
answer is that there is no DIRECT solution; its not like f
=something, it is friction factor as a function of friction factor (both
sides of equation include the unknown parameter f). So, of course
http://www.myengineeringworld.net/2011/05/solutions-of-colebrook-white-equation.html 5/7
7/25/2014 Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World
you can do the iterations by hand and get an acceptable accuracy
after 3-4 iterations, but, again, you can use any of the alternative
equations
Reply Share

jack a year ago


thanks for the great work
best regards
Reply Share

Christos Samaras Admin jack a year ago


Jack. thank you very much for your kind comment!
Reply Share

jack a year ago


hi chris
I just want know why Colebrook equation is the most
1 Reply Share

Christos Samaras Admin jack a year ago


Hi Jack,
Sorry, but I cannot understand the question. Your comment was somehow cut in
the middle.
Reply Share

Christos Samaras a year ago


Hi ma65p,

A short answer will be that the most accurate equation depends on the input
parameters.

I think that the iterative process gives the best results. Then are probably the Goudar
Sonnad and Serghides' equations. Excluding the iterative process, the results are
strongly depended on input parameters (roughness, diameter, fluid velocity etc.), so in
some cases maybe the Goudar Sonnad is better, while on others the Serghides.
Because this is unclear, you can run the other sheets of this workbook in order to
perform a parametric analysis and see which equation is better for your case.

You can check also this workbook that has more equations.

Kind Regards,
Christos
Reply Share

ma65p a year ago


Thank you for the spreadsheet. However, what was your conclusion as to which
approximation was the most accurate?
Reply Share

ALSO ON MY ENGINEERING WORLD WHAT'S THIS?

Drawing Circles n AutoCAD Using Read DBF Files Using VBA


Excel & VBA 6 comments 10 months ago
2 comments 5 months ago Christos Samaras Good to hear that
Christos Samaras Hi keneshi,The your problem was solved!
application that you want to build what will
do?It will design a ductile pipe or

QWT 2 Get The Unique Values From Custom Elevation Function (VBA &
An Excel List Google API)
6 comments 11 months ago 7 comments 11 months ago
Petros Chatzipantazis Christos Thanks Muhammed Ali AYDIN Thanks Christos
for wrapping up the year with a useful
tip.My favorite tools are:1) Remove

Subscribe Add Disqus to your site

http://www.myengineeringworld.net/2011/05/solutions-of-colebrook-white-equation.html 6/7
7/25/2014 Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World
Copyright 2011 - 2014: Christos Samaras Follow us on Facebook , Google+ , Twitter & Linkedin

http://www.myengineeringworld.net/2011/05/solutions-of-colebrook-white-equation.html 7/7

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi