Hydraulic Roughness of Biofouled Pipes, Biofilm Character, and Measured Improvements from Cleaning
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 134, Issue 6
Abstract
The hydraulic performance of pipelines can be significantly affected by the presence of biological growth on internal surfaces. The change in wall roughness brought about by the biofilms has been studied by the use of headloss tests, precleaning and postcleaning of the pipelines in three Tasmanian hydroelectric schemes. Results of the headloss testing show that improvements to hydraulic efficiency can be achieved from the cleaning of biofouling material. The data, when plotted as a Moody diagram, shows that the friction law for conduits roughened by biological growths may not always follow a Colebrook-White type relationship, although the results are too narrow in Reynolds number to be conclusive. It was found that bacteria made up the majority of the biofilm biomass in the pipelines studied. Based on molecular analysis, members of the class Alphaproteobacteria were the most frequently detected followed by members of the phylum Chloroflexi.
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Acknowledgments
The writers thank Hydro Tasmania for support in facilitating field tests. Particular assistance was provided by the following members of Hydro Tasmania staff: Tony Denne, Principal Engineer Civil; Craig Ludlow, Hydraulic Engineer; Michael Sylvester, Asset Engineer (now Senior Hydropower Engineer at Maunsell NZ). This work forms part of a Linkage Project jointly funded by Hydro Tasmania and the Australian Research Council. The comments of three anonymous reviewers helped improve this paper and their efforts are gratefully acknowledged.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 134 • Issue 6 • June 2008
Pages: 852 - 857
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: May 23, 2006
Accepted: Apr 9, 2007
Published online: Jun 1, 2008
Published in print: Jun 2008
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