Flow Establishment in Elastic Pipes

Abstract

The paper addresses the problem of unsteady flow in an elastic pipe, starting from rest and tending towards a turbulent steady state. Careful experiments, involving uncommonly long, smooth-walled conduits, indicate that the hydraulic performance of an elastic pipe is controlled by its finite speed of response to a change in boundary conditions. The actually occurring, pulsatile flow is well described by a water-hammer analysis of the establishment process, but disagrees significantly with theoretical predictions based on assumed conduit rigidity. Flow accelerations, both temporal and convective, are shown to cause a significant increase in the values of the lower-critical Reynolds number of laminar-to-turbulent transition.