On the impedance of the pipe in laminar and turbulent pulsating flows

The response of a facility, consisting of a valveless reciprocating pump, a large settling chamber and a long straight smooth pipe, to a periodic change in the volume was analysed. The impedance of the pipe was estimated in both laminar and turbulent flow regimes under otherwise identical flow conditions. A good agreement with theory was obtained for the laminar flow. The estimate of the pipe impedance from the experimental data in turbulent flow was based on the momentum equation as well as on the measured resonant frequency of the system. These independent methods show that the inertance of the pipe has a qualitatively different behavior in laminar and turbulent flow regimes.