Textile Compressed Air Pipe Network Pressure Drop Modeler

The formula

This is the expression the tool evaluates. Every term is named underneath, with the unit it must be supplied in.

How the result is derived

Step by step, from the values you type to the figure on screen.

1. The 12 inputs are read from the form on every keystroke: Free Air Flow, Internal Pipe Diameter, Straight Pipe Length, Fittings Equivalent Length, Darcy Friction Factor, Working Pressure, Air Temperature, Energy Penalty per 0.1 bar, Compressor Power, Running Hours per Year, Electricity Tariff and Target Pressure Drop.
2. Each value is checked against the accepted range in the input table below. A value outside its range stops the calculation rather than producing a misleading figure — the results blank out and a message appears.
3. The validated values are substituted into the expression above, which resolves Pressure Drop together with every supporting figure in one pass — no value is carried over from a previous entry.
4. The supporting outputs — Air Velocity, Pressure at Machine, Compressor Energy Penalty, Annual Cost of the Drop, Diameter for Target Drop and Total Equivalent Length — come from the same pass, so they always describe the same case as the headline figure.
5. Results are rounded for display only. The full-precision value is used throughout the chain, so reading a rounded intermediate figure back into the tool by hand can shift the last digit.

What each input means

Where to read each value on the floor, the unit it must be in, and the range the tool accepts.

What the tool returns

The headline figure and every supporting value it is built from.

Worked example

The tool loads with this case already solved — the Pressure Drop shown above is its answer. Change one value and the difference from this baseline is the sensitivity of the result to that variable.

How to use it

1. Work through the input groups in order — Pipework and Air & Cost. The defaults are a realistic case, so you can change one value at a time and watch what moves.
2. There is no calculate button. Every figure recalculates as you type or drag, which is what makes this usable for a what-if sweep rather than a single answer.
3. Read Pressure Drop in the dark results panel — that is the headline figure, expressed in bar.
4. Check the supporting rows underneath (Air Velocity, Pressure at Machine, Compressor Energy Penalty, Annual Cost of the Drop, Diameter for Target Drop and Total Equivalent Length) before acting on the headline — they are where an implausible input usually shows itself first.
5. Reset to defaults returns every field to the reference case, which is the quickest way to check whether a surprising result came from the tool or from an input you had changed earlier.

Where this is used

• Process planning — establishing Pressure Drop before a trial is booked, so machine time and material in Advanced Utility & Power Quality are committed against a calculated figure rather than an estimate.
• Costing and quotation — Pressure Drop is an input to the cost sheet, and quoting from a worked number rather than a remembered one is what keeps a margin intact.
• Troubleshooting — when the floor result drifts from plan, entering the measured values (starting with Free Air Flow) shows how much of the gap in Pressure Drop each variable explains.
• Teaching and study — the accepted ranges bracket normal Advanced Utility & Power Quality practice, so moving one variable at a time shows the shape of the relationship rather than a single answer.

Assumptions and limits

• Density is taken at the working pressure and held constant along the run, which is the standard incompressible approximation and stays reasonable while the drop is a small fraction of absolute pressure — above roughly 10% it understates the loss and a compressible treatment is needed. Velocity above about 9 m/s in a main is the practical design ceiling regardless of what the pressure drop says, because velocity carries condensate and noise with it. Fittings equivalent length is where most estimates go wrong: a single poorly chosen valve or a run of tight elbows can exceed the straight pipe, and it should be built up item by item rather than guessed.
• Every input is bounded to the range normal practice occupies (Free Air Flow 1 to 500 m³/min, Internal Pipe Diameter 10 to 400 mm and Straight Pipe Length 1 to 3000 m, and so on for the rest). Those bounds are guard rails against typing errors, not a claim that the formula fails one unit outside them.
• The calculation is deterministic: the same inputs always give the same result. It carries no allowance for machine condition, operator skill, ambient conditions or lot-to-lot material variation unless an input above explicitly represents one.
• Nothing is sent anywhere. The maths runs in your browser, so the numbers you type never leave the page.

Questions people ask