JACKPOT! Uber combined flow resistance calc
 

Download the "ENGINEERING THE PLUMBING SYSTEM" Excel Spreadsheet

You have to have Excell 2000 or newer with the solver add-in installed.

This thing is cool. It uses Darcy, Hazen Williams, Haaland, Swamee-Jain equations, and every pump P/Q curve you can think of (Iwaki, Ehiem, ect..) to figure head losses due to plumbing.

There has to be an easy way to modify this (with creators permission) to include radiator and waterblock resistances. Doing so would let us tweat a virtual system. "I have this pump, this rad, X ft of X ID tubing - I wonder what would happen if i swapped blocks."

It's also good for demonstrating what happens when you put to big of a pump in.

couplings/unions would be each connection in the system to a barb, or something?

I would think so. Everything has a K coefficient.


EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, barbs would fall under the Expansion/ sudden contraction fields if the barb ID isn't the same as the tube ID. If they do have the same ID, I'd put it in the coupling field.

so have you validated its calcs ?
or are you just saying it looks good ?

you might ask pHaestus to see if the results correspond with actual test data
and if pHaestus says yes, then I will spend some time with it

it is not a JACKPOT until its validity with the small stuff WCers use is demonstrated

The depth of calculation is beyond me to validate. I'd like to be able to, but lack a teacher. I can look at an equation and get where they are going with it, but can't technicly make it work.

When you say "...until its validity with the small stuff WCers use...", are you coming from along the same lines as a gauge is only accurate in the middle of said gauges scale?

If this was made by some crackpot from nowhere I wouldn't have even bothered with it, but come on, a Ph.D has to carry some weight.

Oh, yeah. Thanks for keeping me grounded in reallity and not letting me get ahead of myself.

Later.

was not referring to a theoretical validation, rather the correspondence of the calcs with actual test results

typical calcs have a fairly large margin of error, which is ok given their intended use
- the problem for us is that the inaccuracy increases as the size decreases
-> and there are many assumptions that must be made in the characterization of some of the bits and pieces

and then the real bugger:
you need accurate head loss curves for the wb, rad, and res (if used)
I am aware of only one source for such data, though pHaestus is ramping up

e.g.
http://thermal-management-testing.co...hl%20curve.gif

note that this is a test result rather than a calculation

Ok, I'm getting it now.

What if calculations aren't used, but the information is pulled from K coefficient tables. I've seen a ton of these tables around the net and you would think they were based on, and verified against real world data.

I would really like for this to be possible, as I think it could be a good "tool". If this thing is valid at the scales we are using, and WB, rad, and res head loss values could be integrated, would it be possible to integrate thermal data? I realize it wouldn't be dead nuts accurate, but it would allow you to see the relative effects of changing things around.

Here's a link to the entire page this spreadsheet is on.

Oh, yeah. What the heck is fluid power? Is it the kenetic energy of coolant in the loop?

The pump provides power to the cooling loop by moving coolant at some flowrate through the resistance (water to wall friction, and water to water friction) of the cooling loop.

Pressure * Volumetric Flowrate = Power

If you go to http://www.convertit.com/Go/ConvertI.../Converter.ASP:

You can see that 1 liter/second * 1 kilopascal = 1 Watt.

(enter liters/second * kilopascals as liter*kilopascal/second)

Comparing the "fluid power" to the pump's electrical power consumption, gives you some measure of the efficiency which the pump is operating at. (Be aware that the pump manufacturer's spec for power consumption is likely to be substantially higher than the actual pump power consumption in a watercooling loop. The manufacturer's spec is just a maximum.)

UberBlue
go read the section "Water Cooling Simulator Discussion"

BTW, there are multiple threads in that forum, you need to select "from the beginning" near the bottom of the page to see the thread titles though.

Eventually, I'll make some of those threads stickies.

UberBlue I am not ignoring this thread or you but have been pretty busy with some other products. You can find k coefficients for some common fittings used in wcing in this article:

http://www.procooling.com/articles/h...s_with_h2o.php

I am more than willing to generate more numbers such as the curve for quick disconnects Bill just posted. I am still fiddling with my digital pressure gauge though so it may take a bit.

OK. Anything specific I should be looking for, or should I cram all of them?

Read it. That's what started me on this path of enlightenment. One thing I'm having a problem with is corellating your data for K coefficients, with data on published tables.

Thank you everybody for your time.

This thread? I had no idea. I see the folly in my ways.