Hydraulic Calculator for Pipe Flow, Pressure Drop, and Sizing
MetaEnergy Hydra is a professional hydraulic calculator for pipeline engineers. It estimates outlet pressure, flow rate, required pipe diameter, and pipeline length for gas and liquid systems with configurable compressibility correction. The tool runs entirely in the browser and is suitable for natural gas distribution, water mains, fuel oil transmission, and process piping design.
What You Can Calculate
- Outlet pressure (P2) under known inlet pressure, flow rate, fluid properties, pipe geometry, fittings, and elevation
- Flow rate from pressure constraints — useful for capacity assessments and pipeline rating
- Required inner diameter for a target throughput at a given pressure budget
- Maximum economic line length for a fixed pressure drop and flow
Hydraulic Models and Inputs
Supports the Colebrook equation, Colebrook Modified, and AGA fully-turbulent gas model. Compressibility methods for gas: Ideal Gas, Constant Z, CNGA, and GERG-91. Inputs include fluid density and viscosity, pipe roughness, inner diameter, pipeline length, elevation delta, fittings K-values, and pressure basis (gauge or absolute).
Supported Units
Pressure: bar, kPa, MPa, psi (gauge or absolute). Flow: m³/h, SCMH, m³/day, gpm, MMSCFD. Diameter: mm, inch, m. Length: m, km, ft, mi. Roughness: mm, inch, ft. Temperature: °C, °F, K. All unit conversions are reversible and round-trip exactly.
Use Cases
Typical applications include sizing natural gas distribution networks, validating water main capacity, estimating pressure budgets for fuel oil transmission, and preliminary design of process piping. The solver outputs Reynolds number, Darcy friction factor, compressibility factor (Z), entry and exit velocities, and a breakdown of friction, fittings, and elevation losses.