Diameter optimal design of slurry transportation pipeline

In terms of nonlinear optimization method, this paper presented a mathematical model with respect to the diameter optimal design for slurry transportation pipeline. In the condition that pumps configuration, slurry concentration and pipeline material were known, the minimum of unit price per cubic meter of transporting earth was taken as objective function. In the model, unit price was equal to the ratio of annual expenditure to annual transport quantity. For the annual expenditure, the annual cost of pipeline material and the annual operation cost of pumps were considered, which had a close relation to the pipe diameter. Based on detailed analysis of the physical property of slurry and the characteristic curve of transport equipment, the suspension property of slurry and the operating point of whole transportation system were taken as mainly constraint conditions. The numerical-computational results show that the optimal diameter and the flow of the pipe and the final value of the pipe thickness equal 0.895 7 m, 3.134 m³/s and (2.6×) 10^-3 m respectively, compared with the computational diameter 0.9 m of multi-scheme optimization method, the diameter is more accurate.