Pressure wave through liquid in pipe

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
Sign up Log in
2 replies · 2K views · last reply
g_mogni
Messages
47
Reaction score
0
Hello,

I'm a bit rusty with my fluid mechanics and can't seem to find the answer anywhere. Basically I have a pressure wave traveling in a liquid at the speed of sound through a pipe of the shape shown in the attachment (basically a semicircle of constant cross sectional area and then a cone of increasing area. At point A I know the wave has planar wavefront. Is there any formula to work out the shape of the wavefront at the end of the cone at point B, which I suppose will have a slight spherical curvature due to the changing cross-sectional size of the pipe?

Thanks
 
Attachments
  • Line drawing of a U-shaped pipe with a constant-width bend on the left and a widening conical section on the right; a blue planar wavefront marked A sits in the left arm with a downward arrow, and a slightly curved blue wavefront marked B sits in the widening cone with an upward arrow.
    wave.png
    9.7 KB · Views: 520
Physics news on Phys.org

Discussion

There isn't really "a formula" that you can use to determine this by just plugging some numbers in. You could solve the system pretty accurately by modeling it with a wave equation and letting the wave propagate through your geometry to see how it ends up. That's quite a bit more involved than just using a formula to spit out an answer, though.
 
Do you happen to know if a software like COMSOL or other similar programs can perform such analysis numerically?

Thanks
 

Similar threads

Shock wave through a liquid metal filled steel tube
  • BrandonBerchtold
  • · Replies 4 ·
  • Materials and Chemical Engineering
Replies
4