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hf: Head Loss Calculations for Pipelines

The hf package provides simple, efficient, and mathematically rigorous functions to calculate friction head loss, flow rate, and required pipe diameters using standard hydraulic equations.

It fully supports the universal Darcy-Weisbach equation (with Colebrook-White, Swamee-Jain, and other friction factors) and empirical equations (such as Hazen-Williams and Flamant), making it an ideal tool for agronomic and engineering hydraulic designs.

🚀 Interactive Web Application

You can try the package directly in your browser without installing R! The hf package includes a serverless Shiny application powered by WebAssembly (shinylive), allowing you to perform complex hydraulic calculations on the fly.

With the interactive app, you can:

  • Solve for any variable: Instantly calculate Head Loss, Flow Rate, or Required Pipe Diameter based on your system parameters.
  • Compare Methods: Switch seamlessly between the universal Darcy-Weisbach equation (testing both Colebrook-White and Swamee-Jain factors) and the empirical Hazen-Williams formula.
  • Visualize System Dynamics: View automatically generated plots, including System Curves (Head Loss vs. Flow Rate) and Friction Sensitivity (Head Loss vs. Pipe Diameter) to understand how your pipeline behaves.
  • Zero Installation: The app runs entirely client-side in your browser with no R backend required.

👉 Try the hf Hydraulic Calculator

📦 Installation

You can install the development version of hf from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("joaobtj/hf")

Alternatively, you can install it via R-Universe:

install.packages("hf", repos = c("https://joaobtj.r-universe.dev", "https://cloud.r-project.org"))

💡 Usage

Darcy-Weisbach Equation

The universal Darcy-Weisbach method allows for the calculation of head loss using different friction factor functions. By default, it uses the implicit Colebrook-White equation.

library(hf)

# Calculate head loss (m) for a 100m pipe, 0.02 m³/s flow, 0.1m diameter
calc_head_loss_darcy(
  length = 100,
  flow = 0.02,
  diameter = 0.1,
  roughness = 0.00026
)
#> [1] 8.513127

# Use functional injection to apply the Swamee-Jain approximation
calc_head_loss_darcy(
  length = 100,
  flow = 0.02,
  diameter = 0.1,
  roughness = 0.00026,
  friction_fun = calc_friction_sj
)
#> [1] 8.55815

📖 Documentation

For full documentation and bilingual tutorials (English and Portuguese), visit the package website: joaobtj.github.io/hf

🤝 Citation & Contact

Author: Joao Batista Tolentino Jr. (UFSC - Campus Curitibanos)
Contact: | ORCID: 0000-0003-1303-4202