Control Volume Analysis

In this experiment students apply Control Volume (CV) analysis to study how a sudden step change in a pipe's shape affects the flow.

CV analysis is fundamental to fluids engineering and this provides them the opportunity to see it in practice.

The physical experiment makes use of piezometers, which are a simple analogue way of measuring the pressure. There are 5 measurement points along the pipe.

This gives limited information to students which is difficult for them to interpret & visualise, and does not help them gain an intuitive understanding  of how the pressure varies along the pipe.

To address this, a Matlab script was created that takes data entered by students and plots a series of graphs illustrating the pressures as they vary along the pipe length.

This simple digital tool, makes an enormous improvement to how students can see the key concepts working.