Example
A fully-open gate valve is in a pipe with a diameter of 10 inches. What is the equivalent length of pipe which would cause the similar head loss as the gate valve?
Solution:
From the table shown below, we find that the value of Leq/D for a fully-open gate valve is 10.
Leq = (L/D) D
= 10 (10 inches)
= 100 inches
By adding up the equivalent lengths of all components to the real length of pipe in a system we can acquire the Leq value for the whole piping system.