A Preliminary Look at Replacing the Van-slyke Apparatus at the Garfield Thomas Water Tunnel
Open Access
Author:
Mardis, Richard James
Area of Honors:
Aerospace Engineering
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
James A Mickey Jr., Thesis Supervisor Dr. Mark David Maughmer, Thesis Honors Advisor Dr. George A Lesieutre, Faculty Reader
Keywords:
cavitation Van-Slyke Apparatus air content water tunnel aerospace piston mercury
Abstract:
Gathering air content data is extremely important when running mid- to high-speed experiments in water tunnels. Air content can affect many things in these underwater tests, but is most notable for causing cavitation on bodies. To monitor and track air content during experiments, the staff at the Garfield Thomas Water Tunnel, part of Penn State’s Applied Research Lab, use a Van-Slyke apparatus. A Van-Slyke apparatus is a modified mercury manometer, originally developed to measure blood pressure. The Van-Slyke currently measures air content satisfactorily, but as restrictions on toxic elements such as mercury continue to grow, there is becoming a great push to develop newer, safer methods to continue to measure air content.
A few ideas of how to measure air content without the Van-Slyke apparatus were proposed. A non-mercury mechanical method was looked at in detail. A prototype was designed, built, and tested extensively and compared against results taken by the Van-Slyke apparatus. Although the prototype mirrored the Air Content readings from the Van-Slyke, results were inconsistent and less accurate than the Van-Slyke apparatus. Still, the method showed promise, and it will be worthwhile to design a second prototype with better equipment and properties now that the process is fully understood.