How To: Build a laminar flow nozzle for fifteen dollars

This video tutorial shows how fifteen dollars and a half an hour of assembly can produce a working bare-bones laminar flow nozzle that attaches to a garden hose for a makeshift fountain.

If the flow of water is smooth then different layers of water will glide past each other, they don't make turbulent eddies or splashes. A smooth layered flow is called "laminar," which means layered.

To generate laminar flow we're going to create a nozzle that makes the water flow in smooth layers. Slow water is more likely to be laminar, so first we need to slow the water down. Second We also need to remove turbulence from the water coming into the nozzle. And third we have to direct the water into a laminar flow.

We'll direct the water to be laminar by forcing it through 200 drinking straws.

We'll remove the incoming turbulence by placing cheap scouring pads where the water comes in.

To slow the water's flow rate we'll just make our nozzle wider than the hose. A wide river flows slowly, but if you direct that water into a narrow gorge it'll become fast. We'll reverse that effect so the fast water in the hose slows down in a wide nozzle.

For full written instructions, go to:

http://gryphern.googlepages.com/laminarnozzletranscript.rtf