Numerical Simulation of Water Flow in a Venturi Tube Using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Method - Selected Topics of Computational and Experimental Fluid Mechanics - page 456

Numerical Simulation of Water Flow
in a Venturi Tube Using the Smoothed
Particle Hydrodynamics Method

C.E. Alvarado-Rodríguez, A. Aviles, J. Klapp and F.I. Gomez-Castro

Abstract A numerical simulation of water flow through a Venturi tube was made
with the DualSPHysics code, which uses the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics
(SPH) method. The dimensions of the simulated system are equal to the laboratory
experimental setup. The experimental data were measured in the laboratory using a
rotameter and a mercury manometer. The experimental and numerical results show
a similar behavior. Discharge coefficient values are obtained from the numerical
results.

1 Introduction

The Venturi effect predicts that the water pressure within a close conduct decreases as
the velocity increases. The velocity increment is induced by a reduction of the cross
section. A Venturi tube is a device initially designed to measure pipe fluid velocities.
However, it is used to accelerate the velocity of a fluid in devices where the velocity
of the fluid is important as, for example, in a carburator in an oxygen mask, and in
water air purifiers. The Venturi tube sections are shown in Fig. 1 .
A stationary fluid flow is described by the Bernoulli equation

v 2 2 +

P + ρg z = constant . (1)