Discharge Coefficient Measurements Using Heron’s Fountain

Civil Engineering design students at CSUN (California State University, Northridge), aimed to demonstrate the pneumatic action of liquid water as it flows through an airtight one-way vessel system which is known as Heron’s Fountain. This project explores hydraulic and pneumatics principles commonly found in environment control systems, such as the non-isothermal heating facilities located on the CSUN campus. Since this was a simply constructed version of an ancient Greek fountain, its development required the collaboration of the team to execute its simple function. The parameters involved were diameter, length, height, and density. This analysis utilizes Pascal and Bernoulli’s equations to reinforce the principles of fluid mechanics. The fountain action is described based on flow rate and head loss is described by Darcy’s equation. Friction loss with an angled fitting attached to the fountain head is described by Reynold’s equation. The experiment observed the performances of two types of reentrant tube fittings for head loss: straight and angled. The experiment enhanced the educational experience of the research team by bringing together creative ideas from different educational and cultural backgrounds. The results of the experiment concluded with a 0.58% error for the straight fitting and 5.3% error for an angled fitting.