CFD analysis of pressure drops in piping design

• Main Author: Nur Khairunnisa Binti Mohamad Fazli
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: CFD analysis; pressure drops; piping design
• Institution: Universiti Tenaga Nasional

This thesis is mainly focused on comparison of pressure drops for three different piping designs which are optimized swirl pipe, circular pipe with twisted tape insert and circular pipe. All of these pipe designs were modelled using AutoCad and simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). All of the pipe designs were modelled using pipe configuration used by previous research [1]. The result for the optimized swirl pipe was validated with the research paper [1] by comparing the pressure drop in the optimized swirl pipe. The validation was carried out to verify CFD simulation settings used in this project. The project was proceeded by performing CFD simulations to the other two pipe designs. Pressure drop of the pipe designs were compared and tabulated in table. Other than that, pressure contours and velocity vector across the pipes were also presented in this project. It was proven by CFD simulation, that the pressure drop in the optimized swirl pipe is higher than the circular pipe but lower than the circular pipe with twisted tape insert. As the optimized swirl pipe could produce swirling flow, better particle distribution can be obtained and it also generates acceptable range of pressure drop. Therefore, it was considered as a suitable pipe design to reduce clogging in the pipeline system.