In my application with a 190mm long 4 port manifold, do I really have any uniformity concerns? 2

[bobcov]

thread378-346583
Hi, I am extremely impressed by the expertise here. I am not an engineer, so my guess that I have no worries is based on absolute ignorance. However, on a single input 3/4" water manifold 19cm long, with four 1/2" outlets, will there be any appreciable pressure differential between the ports when I pump water through them for cleaning beverage lines? It is so short, I am thinking it would be tough to even measure the difference. If my blissful ignorance has failed me and there would be a big difference in volume between the ports, would it help if I fed water into both ends of the manifold instead of just into one end (it comes with a plug for one end which I can remove)?

Pardon the interruption, thank you for putting up with my question and happy holidays.
Bob

 

[JohnGP]

A bit hard to provide meaningful comment without details of actual characteristics of the supply, and flows involved - higher flow velocity leads to increased pressure drop. But for such a small manifold, pressure difference between outlets is likely to be negligible, as you suggest. Of course, feeding the flow from both ends of the manifold would even things up, again as you suggest, but is not likely to be necessary or warranted, unless you absolutely had to have the exact same flow down each line.
Cheers, and seasons greetings,
John

 

[bobcov]

Thank you, John for lending professional expertise to an amateur's hunch. I don't need exact matching flow. Beverage lines are very short and the pressure is low. If there is a difference of a liter or so, it doesn't impact anything. Next up, the turbidity sensor!

 

[LittleInch]

Difficult to say without knowing fluid flow/velocity and the length, if any, of the connecting pipes.

Water is very good at finding the easiest way to flow so if one of your connections is much shorter than the others or the connections are less than 5 times the length of the header, you could get a lot of difference in the flow in each of the outlets.

Needs a drawing to understand what you're trying to do.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[bobcov]

Hi, Littleinch
I think the essential question has been answered. FYI, all the fluids end up coming out of the tap(s) so eventually, all of them get rinsed pretty well, plus not all of the valves are turned on at the same time all of the time which forces everything down a chosen path. I think I am good here for now. Thank you very much.

 

[bimr]

The flow rates in the various pipe segments will start to diverge as the pressure drop in the various segments increase. The pressure drop will depend on the fluid velocity and length of pipe segment. As you noted, the flows are low which will tend to minimize the fluid velocity and pressure drop.

 

[bobcov]

Hey, one additional question or maybe I should start a new thread...
How can I introduce pulsing flow into my system to aid cleaning debris out of plastic beverage lines? I use an air driven pump now, but I want to switch to electric. Is there any kind of valve I can use that is designed to create a pulsing flow? Or is there an easy way to do a reversing flow? That would also help in cleaning, but I don't want to induce a water hammer effect so maybe a pulse is better than a back and forth action.