To calculate the pressure drop and flowrates in a section of uniform pipe running from Point A to Point B, enter the parameters below. The pipe is assumed to be relatively straight (no sharp bends), such that changes in pressure are due mostly to elevation changes and wall friction. (The default calculation is for a smooth horizontal pipe carrying water, with answers rounded to 3 significant figures.)

Note that a positive Dz means that B is higher than A, whereas a negative Dz means that B is lower than A.

Bernoulli's equation states that the total head h along a streamline (parameterized by x) remains constant. This means that velocity head can be converted into gravity head and/or pressure head (or vice-versa), such that the total head h stays constant. No energy is lost in such a flow.

For real viscous fluids, mechanical energy is converted into heat (in the viscous boundary layer along the pipe walls) and is lost from the flow. Therefore one cannot use Bernoulli's principle of conserved head (or energy) to calculate flow parameters. Still, one can keep track of this lost head by introducing another term (called viscous head) into Bernoulli's equation to get,

For pipe flow, we assume that the pipe diameter D stays constant. By continuity, we then know that the fluid velocity V stays constant along the pipe. With D and V constant we can integrate the viscous head equation and solve for the pressure at Point B,

The viscous head term is scaled by the pipe friction factor f. In general, f depends on the Reynolds Number R of the pipe flow, and the relative roughness e/D of the pipe wall,

For laminar flow (R < 2000 in pipes), f can be deduced analytically. The answer is,