Darcy's Law

Students need to prove/validate Darcy's law holds true in reality, having learnt the theory in lectures.

Darcy's law describes how fluid seeps through porous media - and in real life this can model how quickly water takes to drain through soil.

Students test 3 different flow rates of water passing into a 50mm pipe filled with spherical beads (the porous media) - measuring the pressure drop via piezometers.

Different groups test different bead sizes, to cover varying porosity.

Collating and plotting their data covering a range of flow rates and porosities, allows students to compare the experimental data to Darcy's law, and validate it as true (with discussion of errors and experimental limitations)