Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Heather Watson
James Madison University, School of Engineering
801 Carrier Drive, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA
watsonhl@jmu.edu
up of a uniform monolayer of same-diameter spheres while Ra y y dx . (4)
x 0
employing the same integration techniques as in standard
profilometer software. The resulting algebraic expressions For the profile in Fig. 3
can then be inverted and solved for sphere diameter in terms
of measured roughness. When applied to actual surface y( x) x x 2 (5)
roughness measurements, these expressions give an
approximate value for equivalent sand-grain roughness. and
4. Experimental Validation
In order to validate the estimates of given in Table 1, a
y A Zygo NewView 6300 interferometer was used to measure
Ra, RRMS, and Rzd for pipes of several different materials,
including copper, aluminium, steel, and galvanized steel. The
x values were then converted to their respective sand-grain
Fig. 3. The surface as seen by a profilometer roughness estimates given in Table 1 and then compared to
equivalent sand-grain roughness values obtained from
turbulent fluid flow experiments performed on the same
3. Generalized Algorithm length of pipe.
It is highly unlikely that a profilometer measuring the
roughness of a surface comprised of a monolayer of uniform 4. 1. Fluid Flow Experiments
spheres would scan atop the peak of each sphere. Therefore, Experimental values for equivalent sand-grain
a more sophisticated model in which integrals of the type roughness were obtained for the various pipes via fluid flow
given in (4) can be performed for different scan directions experiments. In effect, measured values of head loss and flow
was developed using the software package MATLAB. Fig. 4 rate were used to calculate experimental values of friction
shows a model of hexagonally packed spheres created in factor and Reynolds number, which in turn were used in the
MATLAB for this purpose. equation developed by Haaland (1983) to estimate
equivalent sand-grain roughness:
1 / D 1.11 6.9
1.8 log (9)
3.7 Re
f
The Haaland equation was used rather than other curve fits
for the Moody Chart since the equation can be explicitly
solved for .
Figure 5 gives a schematic diagram of the flow apparatus
itself along with the physically measured parameters. The
various pipe materials and dimensions are given in Table 2,
and typical values of the other measurands are given in Table
3. Water at room temperature was used in all experiments.
Fig. 4. Model of hexagonally packed spheres created in MATLAB
L V2
hL f , (10)
D 2g
Fig. 6. Comparison of measured surface roughness, estimated sand-
VD grain roughness obtained via the algorithm, and equivalent sand-
Re (11)
grain roughness obtained from fluid flow experiments for 2.05-cm
diameter copper pipe.
where f is friction factor, , is density, and is viscosity. In
terms of the measurands given in Tables 2 and 3, (10) and
(11) can be rearranged to give the data reduction equations Table 4. Comparison of various roughness values.
for f and Re as
Estimated
4 Roughness parameter
Measured sand-grain
Re , (12) value (m) roughness
Dt
(m)
2 ghL D 5t Arithmetic average,
f . (13) 0.204 1.2 0.1
8L2 Ra
Root mean square,
0.269 0.8 0.1
These values were then used in the friction factor equation RRMS
given in (9) and back-solved for to give the experimental Peak-to-valley, Rzd 1.89 1.85 0.09
value of sand-grain roughness:
Equivalent sand-grain
1/1.11 roughness from fluid 1.78 0.08
1 flow experiment, exp
3.7 D10
1.8 f 6.9
(14)
exp Re Figure 6 and Table 4 show that of the measured
roughness parameters, Ra does the worst job of estimating
70
at higher roughnesses Rzd over predicts . As the conversion flow experiments, arithmetic average, root mean square, and
factor for estimating based on Rzd is less than one, the peak-to-valley surface roughness parameters almost always
converted Rzd value therefore does a better job of estimating better approximate equivalent sand-grain roughness after the
at low roughnesses than does the raw measured value, but a algorithm has been applied.
worse job at high roughnesses. And at the two highest sand-
grain roughnesses tested, the converted Ra value actually
slightly outperforms both the measured and converted Rzd Acknowledgements
values. The authors wish to thank Drs. Scott Kirkpatrick and
Also seen in Figs. 6-11 is that the conversion algorithm Azad Siahmakoun of the Department of Physics and Optical
generally does the best job of estimating at the lowest Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology for their
roughness values. That is, the rougher the surface, the less support in this work.
benefit there is in applying the algorithm. These trends can
also be inferred from Fig. 12, in which a comparison of all
measured and converted roughness parameters is given for References
all pipe materials and dimensions. Bahrami, M., Yovanovich, M. M., Cullham, J. R. (2005).
Pressure drop of fully-developed laminar flow in rough
microtubes, Third International Conference on
Microchannels and Minichannels ICCMM 2005-75108.
Binder, R. C. (1973). Fluid Mechanics Prentice-Hall.
Farshad, F. F., Rieke, H. H., (2005). Technology innovation for
determining surface roughness in pipes, Journal of
Petroleum Technology, 57 (10), 82
Haaland, S. E. (1983). Simple and explicit formulas for the
friction factor in turbulent flow, Journal of Fluids
Engineering No. 103 (5), 89-90.
Kandlikar, S. G., Schmitt, D., Carrano, A. L., Taylor, J. B. (2005).
Characterization of surface roughness effects on
pressure drop in single-phase flow in minichannels,
Physics of Fluids, 17 (10).
Fig. 12. Comparison of normalized roughness values for all Moody, L. F. (1944). Friction factors for pipe flow.
geometries and materials. The normalized roughness on the vertical Transactions ASME., 66, 671683.
axis is a given roughness parameter divided by equivalent sand- Nikuradse, J. (1937). Laws of flow in rough pipes, NACA
grain roughness, so that a perfect estimate of has a normalized Technical Memorandum 1292.
roughness of one.
Pesacreta, C., Farshad, F. (2003). Coated Pipe Interior Surface
Roughness as Measured by Three Scanning Probe
It is seen, then, that when the only available information Instruments, Anti-Corros. Methods Mater 50, 6.
regarding surface roughness consists of profilometer- Taylor, J. B., Carrano, A. L., Kandlikar, S. G., (2006).
obtained values of Ra and/or RRMS, the two most common Characterization of the effect of surface roughness and
surface roughness measurements, a correction should always texture on fluid flow: past, present, and future.
be applied. This ensures a better estimate sand-grain International Journal of Thermal Sciences, 45, 962968.
roughness over the raw value, the converted Ra value being
the preferred parameter. When Rzd information is also
available, however, the algorithm may be of less benefit. This
stems from both the correction factor for Rzd being close to
unity as well as the uncertain trends of Rzd over large ranges
of roughness.
5. Conclusion
A simple algorithm to convert various measured surface
roughness parameters to sand-grain roughness has been
developed. The algorithm assumes that the relationship
between measured surface roughness parameters and sand-
grain roughness can be approximated by applying roughness
parameter definitions to a hypothetical surface consisting of a
monolayer of spheres of uniform diameter. Based on fluid