In the spring of 1998, a closed end gravity flow pipeline was installed in the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District. The pipes ranged from 900 mm to 300 mm in diameter. / Manholes were placed at several locations along the pipeline and were used to install velocity meters and pressure transducers, which recorded data every second. Pressures and velocities during periods of steady state were used to calculate the head loss, Re and the Hazen-Williams friction factor, "C", along lengths of constant diameter. / The results were compared to the industry design standard of C = 150 (used for the design of rigid PVC pipe installations) and to the theoretical hydraulically smooth line developed from the Moody diagram and the Darcy-Weisbach equation. Since the maximum and minimum calculated values of C came in the 750 mm and 900 mm diameter pipes, respectively, and all other C values, including those from the 300 mm and 650 mm diameters, fell between these, pipe diameter was assumed not to be a variable. Therefore all the field data was averaged. The average value of Re for the range studied was 9.73 x 105 . The corresponding best-fit C value is 147.7, which is 6.0% lower than the derived theoretical maximum. Since the derived theoretical maximum is the ideal condition and the recorded data was slightly lower and therefore determined be a good representation of what can be expected in true field conditions.

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