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Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation

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Written b y Christos Samaras on Thursday, 19 May 2011 at 19:26

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Problem description

Colebrook & White equation is widely used for calculating the friction factor in turbulent flows. The equation is difficult to

Professional Excel Development

be solved by hand, but with nowadays computers we can overcome this difficulty very fast. The equation is written
below:

Where:
f: friction factor [-]
: roughness [m]
Dh : hydraulic diameter - for pipes is equal to the internal diameter [m]
Re: Reynolds number [-]

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The Reynolds number is calculated by the following formula:

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Where:
V: mean velocity of the flow in the pipe [m/s]
L: pipe length [m]
: dynamic viscosity of the fluid [kg/(ms)]

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Solutions

Open A PDF File With VBA

Here we will discuss about five different approaches to the above equation. The degree of accuracy differs for each
approach, as well as the level of difficulty.

1. Iteration process

If we rewrite the above equation, it will look like this:

By changing the values of friction factor we can find the solution using the trial and error method. However, this can
easily be done in an Excel worksheet using goal seek.

2. Swamee Jains equation

The Swamee Jains equation is used in order to find directly the friction factor in a full-flowing circular pipe. It is an
approximation of the Colebrook & Whites equation.

3. Haaland's equation

Haaland in 1983 simplified the Colebrook & Whites equation to the following equation:

4. Serghides' equations

The last two solutions are more complicated since they approach the problem with a set of equations. Serghides'
solution was based on Steffensen's method
. The solution involves the calculation of three intermediate values first and
then substituting those values into a final equation.

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Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World

5. Goudar Sonnad's equations

Goudar Sonnads set of equations is the most complicated of all the solutions since there are a lot of intermediate
values that should be calculated before the final equation. This set of equations is given below:

Considering that the iteration process gives the most accurate results, I have developed an Excel workbook in order to
experiment on the other four solutions/methods. So, with this workbook you can try it yourself and see which approach
gives results that are closer to the iteration process results.

How to use it

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Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World

In the first sheet (named Solutions) fill all the green cells and press the Solve Equation button. If the flow in the pipe
is turbulent, the sheet will automatically calculate the friction factor with the five different methods that described above.
If you press one of the buttons named Roughness, Diameter, Velocity or Viscosity you will be transferred to the
corresponding sheet. There you can play (loop calculation) with the corresponding parameter and see how the results
of five methods are affected from the parameters change. Furthermore, in each sheet there is also a chart which
depicts the results of your loops.

Downloads

This file can be opened with Excel 2007 or newer. For best results, go to File -> Options -> Formulas tab and put
Maximum Iteration = 30000 (max value is 32767) and Maximum Change = 0.00001 (or even smaller).

Read also

10 + 1 Ways To Find The Friction Factor In Pipes

Pressure Losses In Piping Systems
Friction Factor Function
Head And Pressure Losses In Pipes

Did you like this post? If yes, then share it with your friends. Thank you!

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Solutions Of Colebrook & White Equation ~ My Engineering World

Christos Samaras
Mechanical Engineer (Ph.D. cand.), M.Sc. Cranfield University, Dipl.-Ing. Aristotle University, Thessaloniki - Greece.
Communication: tel. +30-6973513308, e-mail , Facebook , Twitter , Google+ and Linkedin. Full CV here.

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Eugene Fang

4 months ago

Thank you very much for this excel sheet

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Christos Samaras

Admin

Eugene Fang 4 months ago

You 're welcome, my friend!

Reply Share

Otieno Otieno D

9 months ago

This is a nice one, it has helped me alot. Thanks alot Christos.

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Christos Samaras

Admin

Otieno Otieno D 9 months ago

You 're welcome, Otieno! It's good to know that it was useful to someone.
Best Regards,
Christos
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Bkash

9 months ago

Thanks mate... Much appreciated

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Christos Samaras

Admin

Bkash 9 months ago

You 're welcome, my friend!

Kind Regards,
Christos
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mike

a year ago

how to solve the colebrook equation by just hand calculating? i find no way. any idea?
thanks.
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Christos Samaras

Admin

mike a year ago

Mike, all these equations, as well the equations on the other post are in reality
approximations of Coolebrook-White formula. You cannot solve CoolebrookWhite formula by hand, but you can solve the other formulas by hand. And as
Wikipedia writes The Colebrook equation used to be solved numerically due to
its apparent implicit nature.
Reply Share

Vincent Carpenter

Christos Samaras 6 months ago

Christos. Kindly note you can solve CW by hand, it just takes a while.
Typically three iterations are required if the first guesstimate is
reasonable.
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Christos Samaras

Admin

Vincent Carpenter 6 months ago

Vincent, thats true, but, what I was implying in the previous

answer is that there is no DIRECT solution; its not like f
=something, it is friction factor as a function of friction factor (both
sides of equation include the unknown parameter f). So, of course

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you can do the iterations by hand and get an acceptable accuracy
after 3-4 iterations, but, again, you can use any of the alternative
equations
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jack

a year ago

thanks for the great work

best regards
Reply Share

Christos Samaras

Admin

jack a year ago

Jack. thank you very much for your kind comment!

Reply Share

jack

a year ago

hi chris
I just want know why Colebrook equation is the most
1

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Christos Samaras

Admin

jack a year ago

Hi Jack,
Sorry, but I cannot understand the question. Your comment was somehow cut in
the middle.
Reply Share

Christos Samaras

a year ago

Hi ma65p,
A short answer will be that the most accurate equation depends on the input
parameters.
I think that the iterative process gives the best results. Then are probably the Goudar
Sonnad and Serghides' equations. Excluding the iterative process, the results are
strongly depended on input parameters (roughness, diameter, fluid velocity etc.), so in
some cases maybe the Goudar Sonnad is better, while on others the Serghides.
Because this is unclear, you can run the other sheets of this workbook in order to
perform a parametric analysis and see which equation is better for your case.
You can check also this workbook that has more equations.
Kind Regards,
Christos
Reply Share

ma65p

a year ago

Thank you for the spreadsheet. However, what was your conclusion as to which
approximation was the most accurate?
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