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Most Powerful Water Stream?

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 4:43 pm
by SEAL
A long time ago I posted an image of an open dam drain valve, which is essentially a pressurized water blaster of enormous proportions. But now there's a video on Youtube! It's not the same dam; this one only has one outlet instead of two or three. But it's still cool to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrd3748ggLE

The crazy thing is that the 'nozzle' is actually designed to break up the stream. Like a giant quad burst, haha. Imagine if they laminated it.

Re: Most Powerful Water Stream?

Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2020 12:50 pm
by SSCBen
Nice video. I've read a fair amount about these sorts of systems. They don't use the term "breakup", instead preferring "aeration". (Not that there's anything wrong with breakup, it's just not the word those folks use.) The purpose is to dissipate energy and one of the more effective ways to do that is drag. Droplets have much more drag than a stream, so it's advantageous to break up the stream here.

If they used a better nozzle they should get massively improved range, though they also would surely get much more erosion and I don't think they want that. They'd rather have the energy dissipated in moving air (which is basically harmless here) rather than moving solids.

You probably could find some hydraulic mining videos to see streams maybe up to 6 inches in diameter that stay together pretty well.