8 E. CABRERA ET AL.

a=_K...!......:....~_
JI .K D
(3)

E e

with K= water bulk elastic module, E=Young's module of the pipe material and e=pipe
thickness. '

If the system is rigid, the celerity wave tends to infinity (a"oo),and the former equation
of the system (2)becomes:

(4)
oQ == 0
ax

being the flow just depending on time:

(5)
Q = Q (t)

and the second equation of (2) can be written as:

dQ +gA dH +fQIQ I =0 (6)

dt dx 2DA

which characterizes the inertial rigid model.

This equation characterizes the lumped behaviour of water in a pipe of length L, being
used in practice as: