Communications in Computational and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 1 No. 2 (2019) p.

1-4

CCAM Communications in Computational and Applied

Mathematics
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e-ISSN : 2682-7468

Newton Raphson Method for Solving the Friction Factor of

Colebrook Equation in Water Pipeline
Chan Kok Seng, Koh Cheng Zhi, Lee Chia Hwee, Liew Chen Nyin, Wong Hing You and Ong Pauline*

Faculty of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia
86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor, MALAYSIA

*Corresponding Author

Received 01 August 2019;
Accepted 02 September 2019;
Available online 16 October
2019
Abstract: The internal flow of the piping system is important for constructing fluid mechanism. In
order to calculate the elevation difference between two reservoirs, the Colebrook equation can be
used. The Colebrook equation is used to find the Darcy friction factor of the pipe. However, the
friction factor of the Colebrook equation cannot be extracted analytically. Hence, a numerical
analysis is performed to find the Darcy friction factor from Colebrook equation. In this study, the
Newton Raphson method is chosen as the suitable numerical method to solve Colebrook equation.
The Darcy friction factor obtained from the numerical analysis is then compared to the value
obtained from Moody chart. The results showed that the Newton Raphson method can give an
accurate approximation with error of no more than 0.0001.

Keywords: Colebrook equation, Darcy friction factor, fluid mechanism, Newton Raphson

1. Introduction flow. Hence, an implicit relation known as the Colebrook

In the analysis of fluid flow in piping systems,
Bernoulli’s equation is normally used to analyze a fluid
flowing up and down through all kinds of different tubes. In
fluid dynamics, Bernoulli’s equation is the basis for many
applications in engineering field, which is the principle of
energy conservation for ideal fluid in steady flow. However,
there are hydraulic losses occur between two different cross
sections along the pipe. In a typical piping system, the fluid
passes through many fittings, valves, expansion and
contractions before the fluid reaches the straight sections of
piping. The fluid flow is interrupted by these components due
to the flow separation induced and the losses are so-called as
minor losses, while the losses due to friction in pipes are called
as major losses.
Generally, the minor losses are expressed in terms of the
loss coefficient, KL, while the major losses are associated with
frictional effects, which are given in terms of Darcy friction
factor, f. It is important to know that the Darcy friction factor
is not zero even in a smooth pipe, since there is always a
surface roughness which produces the no-slip behavior on the
molecular level of fluid. For the analyzation of fluid flow,
there are two ways to obtain the value of Darcy friction factor.
One of the simplest ways is to obtain the friction factor in
Moody Chart [1]. However, the results are presented in
graphical forms obtained by curve-fitting, where the value of
friction factor obtained is not precise for the analysis of fluid
equation is widely used to determine the friction factor [2-4].
For the Colebrook equation, the relation of friction factor, f
was given as:
1   2.51 
 2.0log  
 3.7 D Re f 
(1)
f  
where f is the Darcy friction factor, 𝜀/𝐷 is the relative
roughness of inner pipe surface, and Re is the Reynolds
number [5]. All the parameters in the Colebrook equation are
literally dimensionless. However, it is very tedious to calculate
the values of friction factor by using the implicit Colebrook
equation. Numerous approximated solutions have been
applied to solve the friction factor, where the common way is
to start with an initial guess value of the friction factor and
solve Equation (1) iteratively [6]. In addition to the iterative
method, solving the Colebrook equation using approximate
formula is another alternative solutions [7-9]. To date, the
most widely used explicit approximations are those proposed
in [1, 3, 10-16].
In this study, the Newton Raphson method is used to
obtain the value of friction factor, due to the advantages of
rapid convergence to a precise solution. The determination of
the friction factor could be achieved through iterative
procedure. Like all numerical methods, for the Newton
Raphson method, the initial guess for the value for f is
assumed. Then, the original assumption is bringing closer to

*Corresponding author: ongp@uthm.edu.my

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 Chan, KS. et al., Communications in Computational and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 1 No. 2 (2019) p. 1-4

the accurate value in successive calculations. The iterative

calculation continues until the convergence criterion is
achieved.
The remaining of this paper is organized as follows: In
Section 2, a brief introduction of the Newton Raphson method
is presented, and followed by the details of the piping system
in Section 3. In Section 4, the experimental simulation and
discussion are provided and lastly, the conclusion is given in
Section 5.
Fig. 1 – The illustration of a piping system
2. Newton Raphson Method
Newton Raphson, specifically, is an iterative root-finding
iterative calculation of Newton Raphson method. The
method which produces better approximation of the root of a
real-valued function in the successive iteration. To apply the stopping condition, on the other hand, will apply the tolerance
Newton Raphson method, a function g(x), its first order error of 0.0001.
Lastly, the value that obtained from the Newton Raphson
derivative, g’(x) and an initial guess of the root of x0 are
method is compared to the value from Moody Chart. The
required. The subsequent estimated root at iteration i is given
by the Newton Raphson method as: converged value of Darcy friction factor from the Newton
Raphson is used to calculate the head loss using:
g ( xi )
xi 1  xi  (2)  l V
2
g '( xi ) hL   f   K L  (6)
 D  2g
where the root xi+1 usually represents a better approximation
of the root than xi [17]. After obtaining the value of head loss, the elevation
between two reservoirs can be calculated accurately, where
3. Newton Raphson Method for Analyzing the Water
Flow in Piping System z1  z2  hL (7)
Fig. 1 presents the piping system used in this study.
Specifically, since the water is set at 10°C, the value of density 4. Results and Discussion
and dynamic viscosity of water is determined from the To calculate the Darcy friction factor, the parameters of
properties table which are 999.7kg/m3and 1.307x10-3kg/ms, the piping system in Fig. 1 are assigned as follows:
respectively. The material of the pipe used is cast iron, the
roughness of the material can be determined from the Moody Diameter, D = 10cm = 0.1m
Chart which is 0.26mm. Material used: cast iron
In order to get the relative roughness of the pipe, the Density of water, ρ = 999.7kg/m3
equation of 𝜀/𝐷 is applied, where 𝜀 is the roughness of the Dynamic viscosity, μ = 1.307x10-3kg/ms
material used, and D is the diameter of the pipe. Besides, the Flow rate, V = 12L/s = 0.012m3/s
Reynolds number of the flow is calculated using:  0.00026
Relative roughness of pipe,   0.0026
D 0.1
 vD Also, the energy equation is given as:
Re  (3)

P1 V2 P V2
 1 1  z1  2   2 2  z2  hL (8)
where ρ is the density of water, v is the velocity of fluid, D is g 2g g 2g
the length or diameter of pipe, and μ is the dynamic viscosity
where
of fluid.
In order to apply the Newton Raphson method, the
 L V
2
Colebrook equation is differentiated. Let the Colebrook
hL  hL ,total  hL , major  hL ,minor   f   K L  (9)
equation be represented by:  D  2g

1   2.51  The average velocity and Reynolds number are given by:
G( f )   2.0log    (4)
 3.7 D Re f
f  
V V 0.012
v    1.527887m / s
Hence, Ac  D 2  (0.10)2
  4 4
   vD (999.7)(1.527887)(0.10)
1 
3
 2(2.51)  Re    116865.236
G '( f )  2
1  (5)  1.307  103
 
f
2 
 log 10   2.51
  Re 
 e  3.7 D Re f
    By referring to the Moody chart, the friction factor is
given by 0.026.
Based on the Moody Chart, the Darcy friction factor is Instead of using the Moody chart, the Newton Raphson
within the range from 0.008 to 0.08. Hence, the initial guess method is applied to determine the friction factor. By using
value of the Darcy friction factor is chosen as 0.008 for the Equation (2) and Equations (4)-(5), and let the initial guess to
2
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 Chan, KS. et al., Communications in Computational and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 1 No. 2 (2019) p. 1-4

 L V
2
Table 1 – Iterative calculation of friction factor using hL   f   K L 
Newton Raphson method  D  2g
i fi G(f) G’(f) Error   100    1.527887 2 
0 0.008 5.129208 -712.597496 hL   0.026382    2.36     3.423288m
  0.1   2(9.81) 
1 0.015198 1.997553 -272.543991 0.007198
2 0.022527 0.517179 -151.141719 0.007329
3 0.025949 0.052274 -122.285034 0.003422 The elevation of source is thus given by:
4 0.026376 0.000636 -119.327710 0.000427 z1  2  3.423288  5.423288m
5 0.026382 0.000000 -119.291569 0.000005
The Darcy friction factor can actually be obtained from a
Table 2 – Iterative calculation of friction factor using source where it is called Moody Chart. The Moody Chart
Secant method allowed us to determine the Darcy friction factor with
i fi G(f) Error approximate value. It is very useful if the calculation does not
require much accuracy as the massive calculation of numerical
0 0.008 5.129208
analysis can be avoided. However, when comes to real
1 0.01 3.925191 1.204015
application of fluid mechanism, it is recommended to obtain
2 0.016520 1.659076 2.266115
the data in high accuracy and high precision. This is because
3 0.021294 0.711614 0.947462
a small different of value will causes large consequences and
4 0.024879 0.187297 0.524317
eventually causes the whole system to be failed. Therefore,
5 0.026160 0.026651 0.160646
numerical method is performed to determine the Darcy
6 0.026372 0.001137 0.025515
friction factor rather than determine from the Moody Chart.
7 0.026382 7.16916E-06 0.001130
From the results obtained, the final value of Darcy
8 0.026382 1.93936E-09 7.16722E-06
friction factor is 0.026382. It is quite similar compared to the
value obtained from Moody Chart, which is 0.026. As here it
be 0.008, tolerance error as 0.0001 and maximum iteration can be observed that there is a small difference of value
number as 100, the iterative calculation using Newton obtained by two different methods, which is 0.000382. The
Raphson is summarized in Table 1. small difference of value will actually affect the whole piping
By using the tolerance error as 0.0001, the Newton system. It is because the pipe for a real fluid mechanism is
Raphson method converges to the friction factor of 0.026382. very long and complex, so it does affect the value of head loss
Additionally, the calculation of friction factor is performed with a small difference. If the value of head loss is not
using the Secant method. The same tolerance error of 0.0001 accurate, then it will affect the design of the elevation between
is applied, while the starting range of the Secant method is two reservoirs [18].
assigned to within 0.008 to 0.08, according to the Moody The graph of Darcy friction against iteration number is
chart. The obtained results are summarized in Table 2. presented in Fig. 2. It can be observed that as the number of
As shown in Table 1 and Table 2, although both Newton iteration increases, the Darcy friction factor started to increase
Raphson method and Secant method converge to the same until it achieves almost a constant value. The final value of
friction factor of 0.026382, the Newton Raphson method Darcy friction factor is 0.026382, with an error of 0.000005,
requires less iterations than the latter. However, the which is smaller than 0.0001. Thus, it can be concluded that
calculation to get the first order derivative in Equation (5) for the Darcy friction factor calculated by Newton Raphson
Newton Raphson method might be tedious. The Secant method is very accurate.
method does not require the calculation of first order After getting the value of Darcy friction factor, the
derivative in this regard. calculation can be continued with fluid mechanics. The total
Next, the sum of loss coefficient is calculated, given as: head loss, hL is 3.423288 m. Since the second reservoir is 2 m
height, therefore the height required for the first reservoir is
K L  K L ,entrance  K L ,elbow  K L ,valve  K L ,exit equal to 5.423288 m.
K L  0.5  2(0.3)  0.2  1.06  2.36
5. Conclusion
In this work, the Newton Raphson method is used to
Then, the total head loss is given by:
estimate the friction factor of the Colebrook equation. From
the approximation, it has been seen that the approximated
value given by the Newton Raphson, i.e. 0.026382 is very
close to the value obtained from Moody chart, which is 0.026.

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3
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