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Chemical Engineering vocabulary · Fluid Flow, Pumps and Piping

Pressure drop

Meaning in chemical engineering, with examples

nounCore term

In chemical engineering, pressure drop means: The loss of pressure as a fluid flows through a pipe, valve, filter, bed or piece of equipment, caused mainly by friction.

In Turkish: basınç düşüşü, basınç kaybı

How it is used

Used in line sizing, pump selection and troubleshooting. Engineers calculate, measure and allow for pressure drop; a rising pressure drop across a filter, catalyst bed or exchanger is a classic sign of plugging or fouling. Often written ΔP and said 'delta P'.

Example sentences

  1. The pressure drop across the filter has doubled since Monday; it's probably blocked.

  2. A 4-inch line would give too much pressure drop, so we went to 6 inches.

Common collocations

  • high pressure drop
  • pressure drop across
  • allowable pressure drop
  • differential pressure
  • calculate the pressure drop
  • flow rateThe amount of fluid that passes a point in a given time, given either as mass (kg/h) or as volume (m³/h).
  • pumpA machine that moves a liquid through pipes by adding pressure to it. Most plant pumps are centrifugal; others are positive displacement types such as gear or diaphragm pumps.
  • foulingThe build-up of unwanted deposits such as scale, coke, polymer or biological growth on equipment surfaces, which reduces heat transfer and increases pressure drop.
  • viscosityA fluid's resistance to flow: honey has a high value, water a low one. Measured in pascal-seconds or, more often in practice, centipoise (cP).
  • Reynolds numberA dimensionless number (Re = ρvD/μ) that compares inertial forces with viscous forces and tells you whether flow is laminar or turbulent.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Fluid Flow, Pumps and Piping

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