Fluid Mechanics & Hydraulics Line Sizing, Pumps & NPSH

What you'll learn

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Size a line on velocity, pressure drop and economics, and know which constraint is really governing
Calculate available NPSH, compare it against required, and defend the margin you have set
Build a system curve, overlay the pump curve and predict how the operating point moves
Work friction and minor losses by hand and identify the input that dominates the answer
Recognise two-phase flow and understand why single-phase methods mislead in those services
Size gas lines and work compressible pressure drop, including choked flow and critical velocity
Assess water hammer and hydraulic transients, and specify valve closure times that avoid them
Apply and challenge velocity criteria such as API RP 14E rather than treating them as design rules
Diagnose a system that will not achieve rated flow, separating hydraulic causes from mechanical ones
Read and question an inherited hydraulic calculation or spreadsheet before you put your name on it
Requirements

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No prior hydraulics experience is required - fluid properties, pressure and head are built up from the start
Any engineering or technical background is enough to follow the course
Comfortable with basic algebra - every calculation is worked step by step
Helpful but not essential: some familiarity with reading a P&ID or a pump curve
No software or purchases needed - every calculation in the course can be done on paper
Description

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This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
▸ You passed fluid mechanics. Then someone asked you to size a line, and none of it helped.
University fluid mechanics is built around derivations, control volumes and problems with clean answers. Working hydraulics is built around a fluid whose properties you are not sure of, a line routing that is not final, a pump curve from a vendor and a margin philosophy nobody wrote down. The gap between the two is where a lot of engineers quietly lose confidence.
This course closes that gap. It is the applied layer: the relationships you use, the input that dominates the answer, the assumption that most often makes it wrong, and the sensitivity that matters once the system is running.
▸ Calculation in context, not derivation
Every calculation here is worked by hand and then interrogated. Not just how the number comes out, but which input it is most sensitive to, what changes when the fluid is hotter or the line is longer than the drawing says, and how much of the answer is real engineering versus accumulated conservatism.
Where no standard governs - and in hydraulics, very often none does - the course says so. Velocity criteria such as API RP 14E are covered honestly, including why the erosional velocity relationship is contested and how it is misused as a design rule. You will be told where you are on solid ground and where you are relying on industry practice.
Five focused sections, worked through in an afternoon. No twenty hours of derivations read aloud.
▸ What you will master
● Size a line properly - velocity, pressure drop, economics and the practical constraints that override all three
● Calculate friction loss in straight pipe and decide when the friction factor method actually matters to the answer
● Handle fittings and valves as equivalent length or K values, and know which approach fails where
● Build a system curve, overlay a pump curve, and find and move the operating point
● Calculate available NPSH from the suction system, compare it against required, and set a defensible margin
● Recognise where two-phase flow changes the problem and why single-phase methods give dangerous answers
● Size gas lines and work compressible pressure drop, including where the incompressible shortcut breaks down
● Identify choked flow and critical velocity, and know what happens downstream of the choke point
● Assess water hammer and hydraulic transients - surge pressure, valve closure time and the systems most at risk
● Read a flow measurement installation critically and understand where the error is coming from
▸ Who this course is for

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● Process and project engineers who size lines, specify pumps and produce hydraulic calculations
● Graduate engineers who studied fluid mechanics academically and now have to apply it
● Piping and layout engineers who need to understand the hydraulic consequence of a routing decision
● Mechanical and rotating equipment engineers dealing with pump suction problems and cavitation
● Commissioning and operations engineers diagnosing systems that will not achieve rated flow
● Engineers returning to hydraulics after time away from it, who want the applied layer without the derivations
▸ The knowledge that is hard to find
Hydraulic competence is normally acquired by inheriting a spreadsheet. It works, so nobody questions it, and the assumptions inside it become invisible - until a system underperforms and nobody can say why. Being able to work the calculation by hand, and to say which number the answer really hangs on, is what separates an engineer who owns a calculation from one who runs one.
▸ Why learn it here
Taught by a Chartered Engineer (CEng MIMechE) with over fifteen years delivering safety-critical projects in oil, gas and energy infrastructure - from the perspective of someone who has had to defend these calculations on live projects rather than present them from a textbook.
The final section works a complete real system end to end and then goes through the hydraulic errors that recur across projects, because seeing a calculation go wrong teaches more than seeing it go right.
▸ What you get
● Structured on-demand video across 20 focused lessons and five sections
● All lectures presentations downloadable
● Lifetime access on mobile and TV, and a certificate of completion
▸ No prior hydraulics experience is required - fluid properties, pressure and head are built from first principles. Comfort with basic algebra is enough; every calculation is worked step by step.
Enrol now and stop trusting a spreadsheet you did not write.
Who this course is for

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Process and project engineers producing line sizing and hydraulic calculations
Graduate engineers moving from academic fluid mechanics to applied plant hydraulics
Piping, layout and stress engineers who need the hydraulic consequence of a routing decision
Mechanical and rotating equipment engineers dealing with suction problems, cavitation and pump performance
Commissioning and operations engineers diagnosing systems that will not make rated flow
Engineers returning to hydraulics after time in another role and rebuilding the applied skill quickly
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