Abstract

The purpose of this research is to present petroleum and chemical engineers with a new, practical, and fundamental equation that accurately determines the friction losses in traditional and modern piping systems. The results of this study begin with a necessary mathematical and historical review of determining pipe friction factors under smooth and rough conditions. These formulas provided a base for a statistical evaluation of the calculated friction factors associated with rough and smooth pipes. A new formula is developed, making it easy to calculate explicitly without carrying out rigorous iterative methods. Our new friction factor correlation was based on the nonlinear multivariable surface fitting tool in MATLAB. The final equation correlates the friction factor to the Reynolds number and relative roughness by means of simple logarithmic and exponential functions. The validation and accuracy of the model was tested by using statistical analysis and comparison to other existing correlations. The Ghanbari–Farshad–Rieke’s correlation generates superior results over the existing standard friction factor equations.

Key words: Friction factor, piping, relative roughness, Reynolds’ number.