Homework 3.1 taught me how to calculate “minor” energy losses due to items such as pipe bends or elbows. I put minor in air quotes because while they can be minor, they can also be major in a system that has many of these fittings, such as most homes. I got comfortable with calculating volumetric flow and manipulating Bernoulli’s equation, and excel was really helpful in avoiding mistakes when calculating Reynold’s number.

Series pipeline was the subject of our second test. I learned how to calculate losses in pipelines and our ability to account of other losses such as sudden enlargement and reducers was tested. Reducers and enlargements were used to go from one pipeline size to another.

Homework 3.3 covered Forces due to fluid in motion. The concept seems simple, but understanding that what we care about here are the forces exerted on the control volume and NOT the forces from the control volume was very challenging. The chapter made more sense once that concept was understood as well as the difference between relative and absolute velocity.

The last homework assignment covered how to select pumps and applications. I learned Kinetic pumps are cheaper, and smaller than positive displacement pumps. I also learned the principle behind positive displacement pumps and their application is for very viscous fluids, multiphase flows and when volumetric flow must be constant. I am comfortable navigating a catalog such as Sulzer’s to find the pump I need and provide electrical and civil engineers with the info they need.

Some of the concepts are hard to understand, the work is tedious, but I really enjoyed working through the problems and having those moments when things “clicked” and I could understand what is going on in a system.

Homework 3.1

Homework 3.2

Homework 3.3

Homework 3.4