Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 135 pages of information about Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 135 pages of information about Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884.
to 1/2 in.  It will be noticed that as this distance increases we have augmented pressures, and these are not due, as might be supposed, to increase of head, which is practically nothing, but they are due to the recoil of a portion of the stream, which occurs increasingly as it becomes more and more broken up.  These alterations in pressure can only be eliminated when care is taken to measure that only due to impact, without at the same time adding the effect of an imperfect reaction.  Any stream that can run off at all points from a smooth surface gives the minimum of pressure thereon, for then the least resistance is offered to the destruction of the vertical element of its velocity, but this freedom becomes lost when a stream is diverted into a confined channel.  As pressure is an indication and measure of lost velocity, we may then reasonably look for greater pressure on the scale when a stream is confined after impact than when it discharges freely in every direction.  Experimentally this is shown to be the case, for when the same oblong jet, discharged under the same conditions, impinged vertically upon a smooth plate, and gave a pressure of 71 units, gave 87 units when discharged into a confined right-angled channel.  This result emphasizes the necessity for confining streams of water whenever it is desired to receive the greatest pressure by arresting their velocity.  Such streams will always endeavor to escape in the directions of least resistance, and, therefore, in a turbine means should be provided to prevent any lateral deviation of the streams while passing through their buckets.  So with screw propellers the great mass of surrounding water may be regarded as acting like a channel with elastic sides, which permits the area enlarging as the velocity of a current passing diminishes.  The experiments thus far described have been made with jets of an oblong shape, and they give results differing in some degree from those obtained with circular jets.  Yet as the general conclusions from both are found the same, it will avoid unnecessary prolixity by using the data from experiments made with a circular jet of 0.05 square inch area, discharging a stream at the rate of 40 ft. per second.  This amounts to 52 lb. of water per minute with an available head of 25 ft., or 1,300 foot-pounds per minute.  The tubes which received and directed the course of this jet were generally of lead, having a perfectly smooth internal surface, for it was found that with a rougher surface the flow of water is retarded, and changes occur in the data obtained.  Any stream having its course changed presses against the body causing such change, this pressure increasing in proportion to the angle through which the change is made, and also according to the radius of a curve around which it flows.  This fact has long been known to hydraulic engineers, and formulae exist by which such pressures can be determined; nevertheless, it will be useful to study these relations from a somewhat different
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Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.