Pressure Drop in Pipelines

A strainer will have a pressure drop.The supplier should be able to give you a clean pressure drop, at the flow you want to put through it, and maybe a maximum recommended clogged figure.

You need to allow for this drop in the overall system design.

A strainer,like any other restriction, will cause a pressure drop.

The drop will depend on many factors,including mesh size,strainer size,viscosity of the fluid,temperature .etc.

The strainer specifications should list a chart showing flow vs drop and other variables.

You could install an oversize strainer to reduce the drop.

Space constraints may limit your options,but if this is a critical operation,a differential pressure switch with alarms could be implemented,either a simple switch, or computer monitored,with a second strainer and bypass valving capability installed in the line.

You can lower the flow rate or increase the strainer size...You have turbulence and viscosity to consider as well as the flow velocity, pipe size and type...

http://www.titanfci.com/technical-data/pressure-drop

Or hook up more strainers and run in parallel, that reduces the flow rate per strainer.

How a strainer effects a pressure drop is inversely related to the flow rate of the fluid. If the fluid is not flowing then the pressure on both sides of the strainer will be the same. This is known as Bernoulli's Principle. The equations will change depending on the compressibility of the fluid and to a lesser extent turbidity and more complex fluid dynamic concerns. A strainer will less likely completely clog flow than a single orifice of the same opening area. At the same time a strainer will more likely partially clog since individual openings will be smaller.

Very little to100%

Is it clear,clogged or something in between?

A properly sized strainer is unlikely to produce a critical pressure drop in your piping. During design, so many safety factors are introduced into the sizing such that it it highly unlikely the pressure drop of a single strainer will affect the pipe sizing for the entire line. Your only other option would be to reduce the friction by increasing the pipe size, easily checked if still in design stage.

what exactly is the medium? Liquid, gas, slurry? how bout viscosity. if this a course homework assignment, i would suggest doing research and learning something. These Assignments are given for a reason, do you want to finish school with a piece of paper or would you like to have an education?

This is not an assignment. I am an intern in an oleochemical refining plant and this is one of the on-going projects in the plant. I am new to this, so I ask questions to learn more.
The medium is vacuum. They are planning to add a strainer or cyclone separator to collect the solid carryover from a reactor that is clogging the tubes in the condenser. The whole unit is operating under vacuum.

The term strainer is normally applied to liquid systems, where cyclone normally refers to gas systems, so you understand the liquid references. Still, a properly sized strainer should not affect the sizing of your piping system, though it will be quite large. The velocity drop will tend to drop out solids, so a filter with an airlock dump could work for your needs

The medium is vacuum.

Not correct : there is a "medium" circulating in the system but at this point the pressure is maintained very low thus the term "vacuum".

They are planning to add a strainer or cyclone separator to collect the solid carryover from a reactor that is clogging the tubes in the condenser.

The cyclone would be a better solution if it is well matched to the medium flow and if the particles geometry as well as the "medium" dynamic viscosity are considered since the separation degree depends on the relative Reynolds value of the particle radial movement in the "medium" during their conical helix trajectory .

Lots of ifs there, and to get the right velocity and pressure drop, we’re talking adding another fan. I find it had to believe that the selective collection efficiency of a cyclone can approach a simple strainer, where models with internal wipes and airlock dropout are simple to apply, especially in the somewhat reduced pressure of the flowing medium.

Adding a <...strainer...> doesn't <...affect the pressure drop in pipelines...>; it adds to the <...pressure drop...> that already exists.

One doesn't get <...solids carryover...> in a <...vacuum...>; that's why there are no dust storms on the Moon, for example, and there are on Mars, where there is an atmosphere. And a pipeline that is carrying a <...vacuum...> only, doesn't have a <...pressure drop...>, because there is no flow.

What questions have the <...They...> been asked, and why is there a residual curiosity as a result of the answers to those questions?

The questions that need to be asked of the <...They...> are:

• What has changed since the plant was first commissioned (find and refer to the original commissioning records and associated HazOp Study records)?
• Why is there now a <...solid carryover from a reactor that is clogging the tubes in the condenser...> when the medium is stated as a <...vacuum...>? Why doesn't the <...solid...> sublime to vapour in the <...vacuum...> thereby preventing the problem? Why is the plant being pushed so hard now that a <...solid carryover from a reactor that is clogging the tubes in the condenser...> is now happening when it hasn't been until recently?

There is no need to respond to these questions in this forum.

Be prepared for discomfort along the lines of "smart-ar$e" in the responses and concentrate on the technicalities, never the personalities, in response to those.

Bear in mind also that any filtering equipment, such as a <...strainer...> is designed to block, otherwise it isn't doing its job.

sorry mis-read you.

there must be something to cause the particulate to move thru the pipe. so even if there is no oxygen to oxidize the oils, i am assuming there is oil that is the product flowing?

What type of fluid in the pipelines?

I believe you are considering a different type of reactor. The author stated that it was an oleochemical refining plant.

i would assume that the fatty acids, lipids and other products would oxidize, and needed to be kept in inert or vacuum environments. i know certain oxidation is done to create a material that is reactive to certain degree, i believe they call it "blown"? where they bubble oxygen thru the oils to get a particular zeta potential.

Great comment,... and you’re right.

All depends on what your trying to accomplish, we ran methanol through fatty acids (oleic acid) to get the reaction.

I never thought I’d use what I learned in high school in freshmen biology and chem II classes.

You have made an incorrect assumption. I clearly and distinctly indicated that I was using sarcasm. I don't know what type of a reactor you thought I was thinking of. I added the probably incorrect idea of using liquid sodium to cool the reactor to reinforce the sarcasm. Then again, sodium melts at 98°C so it is not impossible that this high thermal transfer metal might be considered to moderate the temperature of a modest chemical reactor operating above this temperature.

This thread initially started as a question about pipeline flows with yourself asking what medium or slurry will be crossing this screen. I consider a pipeline as a way to convey a fluid a long distance. Plumbing moves fluids a short distance. The answer by the only response by the OP is that this is actually part of a post reactor transfer line (plumbing) with the ambiguous answer that the media (fluid) is a vacuum. A vacuum is the absence or reduction of something and not the thing itself.