Fluid Mechanics Assignment Bernoullis Theorem using a Venturi Tube Introduction

The assignment was set to do a practical laboratory experiment, looking into Bernoullis equation. The class was separated into teams of 3 and 4. My team consisted of Alex, Ian and Francisco. Background of Daniel Bernoulli The Swiss doctor, mathematician and physician Daniel Bernoulli (1700-82), son of the mathematician Johann Bernoulli, studied medicine and mathematics in his home town of Basel, in Heidelberg. After he had given up trying to find a mechanical explanation for gravitation. In his famous main work "Hydrodynamica" (Basel 1738), which was a milestone in the theory of the flowing behaviour of liquids, Daniel Bernoulli developed the theory of watermills, windmills, water pumps and water propellers. He studied the flow of fluids and formulated the principle (Bernoullis principle) that the pressure exerted by a fluid is inversely proportional to its rate of flow. This work however, did not gain wide notice at the time. The objective of this assignment is to consider: 1) Bernoullis theorem for an ideal fluid applied to a fluid.

2) Demonstrate the energy loss or head loss 3) Observe that an increase in velocity results in a drop in static pressure and vice versa.

(Bibliography: www.famousscientists.org/daniel-bernoulli/)

The Experiment
The team met at the lab and was given an introduction by the technician that included health and safety rules and a brief description of the objectives that was going to be carried out. We stood around the Venturi meter that demonstrates the Bernoullis principle. The technician assigned each person a responsibility so the experiment could be carried out. Alex looked after the water flow by controlling with different rates and Ian was recording his flow time by a stopwatch. I was reading the 11 tubes each time we opened the valve this was carried out 3 times Francisco was recorded my reading. All the readings we took were used after to analyse this theorem. During the experiment we have used a lever arm with the ratio of 1:3 to be able to control water flow. The weight of 2kg was added 3 times, totalling it to 6kg. So by doing a calculations we found out that the mass of the water.

By recording the water 6 litres and calculating the average time of discharge, the average between 2 times that Ian has recorded we could find out how the flow for each case by using the formula:

We determined the area of the 11 tubes. We would need the areas later on to further the

calculation. The technician showed us on the back of the Venturi meter that the areas were already worked out. So we just recorded this data for our calcs. After finding the areas, we then calculated the velocity by using the following formula:

With the 11 recordings Francisco and me took and the timings Ian recorded. We combined the data together in a data sheet that would process our results with figures that were used to create a graph so the theorem could be shown.

Calculations

Conclusion

Once we had finished the experiment we considered Bernoulli theorem.

We have discovered the energy (or head loss) in the real fluid comparing to ideal fluid. By looking at the results we found that an increase in velocity results in a drop in static pressure, and the drop in velocity will result in increase in static pressure. We have created 3 graphs showing the calculations using Bernoullis theory. The graphs visually show very similar shape and are even more or less similar at beginning but with distance increase graphs are clearly different. In my opinion participating in the lab work was enjoyable instead of studying just the theory of Bernoullis theory, it was good to see the practical sense of how the effects of fluid within a tube.