Hydraulics

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Determine the capacity of pipelines, establish the pressures and the energy gradients along the pipe
• Analyse simple and complex pipeline systems, including pipe networks
• Analyse and predict the behaviour of sub-critical and supercritical open channel flows
• Identify and interpret situations in hydraulics in a way that is relevant to design
• Devise solutions for problems involving open channel and pipe flows

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Group work/team work
• Problem analysis and problem solving
• Report writing

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Working principles of pumps commonly used in hydraulic engineering
• Mass, momentum and energy principles governing pipe and open channel flows
• Different type of flows (i.e. uniform-non uniform, steady-uinsteady, gradually varied-rapidly varied)

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Operate systems used in a hydraulics laboratory
• Carry out and present engineering calculations
• Exercise technical judgement and make decisions

OPEN CHANNEL HYDRAULICS

• Uniform flow, the Chézy and Manning equations
• Applying these equations to determine the discharge in a channel or the sizing of a channel for a particular discharge
• Design guidelines including the concept of the best hydraulic section
• Non-Uniform Flow including Specific Energy and Critical Depth
• Understanding the possible types of flow, Sub-critical and super-critical as well as Critical, Mild and Steep slopes
• Flow measurement, Weirs and Flumes
• Transitions through Critical Depth, Control Points
• The Hydraulic Jump
• The Equation of Gradually Varied Flow
• Flow Profiles
• Profile Evaluation, the Direct Step Method and the Standard Step Method

PIPE FLOW

• Equations for pipe discharge: the Darcy-Weisbach and the Colebrook-White equations.
• Solving the Colebrook-White equation
• Minor head losses
• Pipes in Series and in Parallel
• Pipe Networks, the Hardy-Cross solution
• Unsteady flows in pipes: the water hammer

TURBOMACHINERY

• Overview of Turbines
• Rotodynamic Pumps, Characteristics
• Understanding how the head developed by a pump is used and dissipated
• Matching the Pump and the Pipeline

The module is divided into 12 lectures devoted to pipe flows 4 lectures devoted to turbo-machinery and 20 lectures devoted to open channel flows. Lectures are interspersed with tutorials where you will be supported in learning the pipe network software EPANET, which you will be expected to use for one of the assessments of this module. Some extra tutorials will be also delivered to help you to conduct the laboratory experiments which you are also expected to carry out for another assessment of this module.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.