Every pump on your system has to overcome more than just the elevation it's lifting water against — it also has to push through the friction of every foot of pipe and generate enough energy to keep the water moving at speed. Add those three things together and you get Total Dynamic Head, the single number that determines whether a pump will actually deliver the flow your system needs. This guide builds that number from scratch, piece by piece, with a complete worked pump-sizing example.
From Static Head to Total Dynamic Head
So far you've worked with static head — the pure elevation difference between a water source and a discharge point, assuming nothing is moving. But the moment a pump is actually running and pushing water through pipe, two more forms of head come into play:
TDH=Static Head+Friction Head Loss+Velocity Head