Routines for Computing Pressure Drops in Venturis

A set of computer-program routines has been developed for calculating pressure drops and recoveries of flows through standard venturis, nozzle venturis, and orifices. Relative to prior methods used for such calculations, the method implemented by these routines offers greater accuracy because it involves fewer simplifying assumptions and is more generally applicable to wide ranges of flow conditions. These routines are based on conservation of momentum and energy equations for real nonideal fluids, the properties of which are calculated by curve-fitting subroutines based on empirical properties data. These routines are capable of representing cavitating, choked, non-cavitating, and unchoked flow conditions for liquids, gases, and supercritical fluids. For a computation of flow through a given venturi, nozzle venturi, or orifice, the routines determine which flow condition occurs: First, they calculate a throat pressure under the assumption that the flow is unchoked or non-cavitating, then they calculate the throat pressure under the assumption that the flow is choked or cavitating. The assumption that yields the higher throat pressure is selected as the correct one.