Fluid Mechanics Demos

Click on the following categories to view a list of demos or scroll down to browse.

Surface Tension Statics of Fluids Dynamics of Fluids

Click on the following titles to view a picture and description of each demo.

Surface Tension

• Capillary Action
• Cohesion Plates
• Rubber Balloons
• Surface Tension Bottle

Statics of Fluids

• Buoyancy in an Aquarium
• Cartesian Diver
• Crush the Can
• Density Ball
• Floating Coke Cans
• Glass and Card Trick
• Magdeburg Hemispheres
• Pascal's Vases
• Pascal's Syringe (shows equal hydrostatic pressure throughout a volume--why the Heimlich manoever works!)
• Weighing Submerged Block
• Hydraulics--mechanical advantage
• Sphyngomanometer (blood pressure cuff)

Dynamics of Fluids

• Attracting Sheets
• Ball and Funnel
• Bernoulli's Law Tubes
• Floating Beach Ball
• Terminal Velocity of Coffee Filters
• Terminal Velocity of Dropped Balls
• Terminal Velocity of Styrofoam
• Three Holes in a Can
• Tornado Tube
• Vortex Cannon (fires vortices of air that can knock over a paper cup)
• Smoke-ring Gun (fires visible vortices of smoke rings using special fluid
• Sand Wand (plastic tube filled with sand and a large ball; goal is to get the ball from one end to the other; trick is that you need to use the Brazil nut effect)

Also see Jerry Gollub for his special collection of fluids demos.

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