Hydraulic Transients in Pipe Systems
Summary
Many water utilities have in-house hydraulic modeling capacities to analyze their systems in planning, design, operations, and management. However, many modeling efforts are geared toward or limited to a steady state or extended period simulations, which assume that the water column is incompressible and that pipe materials are not elastic. The mass continuity and energy equations neglect to explain rapid changes that should be described by momentum equations (i.e., transient pressure waves generated due to sudden changes in flow). The hydraulic transient pressure can result in pipe bursts and structural damage to other critical appurtenances. In addition, low flow due to transients can induce contamination intrusion in the systems. The lecture focuses on simulating hydraulic transients in pipe systems using MATLAB.
KEYWORDS: Hydraulic transients, continuity equation, momentum equation, finite difference equation, simulation.
CollapseLearning Goals
1. Explain hydraulic transients in pressurized pipe systems.
2. Use the hydraulic transients governing equations (in finite differential equation forms), develop codes, and run them using MATLAB.
3. Assess and interpret modeling results.
Context for Use
This is developed for lab/ classroom activity. It takes about 2 hours.
Students should be familiar with steady/ unsteady state concepts in pipeline systems and have a basic understanding of continuity/ momentum equations in partial differential equations; and associated numerical methods such as finite difference methods. The student should have basic exposure to MATLAB because students will develop the code based on the finite difference model.
Description and Teaching Materials
Hydraulic Transients in Pipe Systems (Acrobat (PDF) 4MB Sep6 22)