ABSTRACT
As engineers, we can all recall electrical networks of resistors, voltage sources, and current sources introduced in the first undergraduate course in electrical engineering. In an electrical network, according to Ohm’s law, the voltage drop across each resistor is equal to the product of its resistance and the current flowing through it. This relationship between resistance, voltage drop, and current is a linear one, which renders an electrical network linear. Regardless of the size and complexity, an electrical network can easily be solved using one of the following two methods: Kirchhoff’s current law and Kirchhoff’s voltage law. In an undergraduate class in fluid mechanics, a pipe flow network, consisting of pipes in series and parallel, is often introduced, and is similar to the electrical network. However, the relationship between the pressure drop and the flow rate in a turbulent pipe flow is nonlinear, and unlike an electrical network, pipe flow networks are typically nonlinear and must be solved using an iterative numerical method.
