Re: [Phys-l] [tap-l] sprinkler

[Brian Whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net>]

I'd like to salute the artificer who designed and built this sprinkler head.
I chose instead the brute force method, with a half horse water pump
 and plumbed stop cocks sucking or blowing from/to a commercial
sprinkler head.  The inverse acceleration effect escaped me altogether.

    One contribution to the failure was a detail of the rotor bearing,
which was essentially fluidic when blown, but a plain bearing
 when sucked.   I can imagine that the UMaryland implementation used
two small ball races (like those in a skate board wheel?) with a very
small air gap in the fluid connection, but  details would be interesting.

Brian W

At 10:16 AM 11/14/2007,  Richard Berg, you wrote:

> Tony,
>
> Ours works very well with either water (using siphon action) or air from a
> small air track blower.  unfortunately, we made it here so you will not be
> able to buy one.  See:
>
> http://www.physics.umd.edu/lecdem/services/demos/demosd3/d3-22.htm
>
> It has very low friction, so it shows important details of both the
> normal and the inverse sprinkler action.
>
> Dick

> Dr. Richard E. Berg, Professor of the Practice
> University of Maryland





Brian Whatcott    Altus OK    Eureka!