What is "Hydraulic Design"?

[Poconos]

My guess on 'hydraulic design'? As Carl said flow both thru the pipes and in the pool itself is important. I suspect the term is used to indicate that the pipes are sized and routed to minimize flow resistance. ex: swept bends vs. sharp 90's etc. The builder is right about 90's making it easier to fix a problem. However, by oversizing the pipes the bends and routing become less significant. The difference in cost between pipe sizes is small so once you dig, put in the largest reasonable size.
Al

[South_Texas_Sun]

Hi Poconos, thanks for the reply.

Like you, I come from the "bigger is better" school for most things, and when asked, our Pool Builder said that he used 2 1/2" pipe.

Now, if you've ever siphoned gas out of a car, you probably realized that "too big" is much worse than "not big enough" unless you can get enough suction........ (insert veiled double-entendre here....lol)

Is there a book on pool hydraulics or some way to get a little smarter on the subject without building a few hundred pools?

Since our pool project is slightly UPhill from the house, I'm pretty anxious to get it right the first time on drainage and plumbing issues.

Thanks again.

[Poconos]

Siphoning gas is a lot different than the suction line on a pump. You have limited lung volume capacity. If you're thinking of the pump priming sequence, the pump pulls a slight vacuum (self-priming) so the size of the pipe won't matter. It still pulls the same vacuum independant of suction line size.
Al
BTW: Know of no books on the subject other than technical fluid dynamics stuff. Perhaps some of the plumbing books get into this without going into the 'why' but I don't know.