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Concept
Hydraulic head
Summary
Hydraulic head or piezometric head is a specific measurement of liquid pressure above a vertical datum.
It is usually measured as a liquid surface elevation, expressed in units of length, at the entrance (or bottom) of a piezometer. In an aquifer, it can be calculated from the depth to water in a piezometric well (a specialized water well), and given information of the piezometer's elevation and screen depth. Hydraulic head can similarly be measured in a column of water using a standpipe piezometer by measuring the height of the water surface in the tube relative to a common datum. The hydraulic head can be used to determine a hydraulic gradient between two or more points.
In fluid dynamics, head is a concept that relates the energy in an incompressible fluid to the height of an equivalent static column of that fluid. From Bernoulli's principle, the total energy at a given point in a fluid is the energy associated with the movement of the fluid, plus energy from static pressure in the fluid, plus energy from the height of the fluid relative to an arbitrary datum. Head is expressed in units of distance such as meters or feet. The force per unit volume on a fluid in a gravitational field is equal to ρg where ρ is the density of the fluid, and g is the gravitational acceleration. On Earth, additional height of fresh water adds a static pressure of about 9.8 kPa per meter (0.098 bar/m) or 0.433 psi per foot of water column height.
The static head of a pump is the maximum height (pressure) it can deliver. The capability of the pump at a certain RPM can be read from its Q-H curve (flow vs. height).
Head is useful in specifying centrifugal pumps because their pumping characteristics tend to be independent of the fluid's density.
There are generally four types of head:
Velocity head is due to the bulk motion (kinetic energy) of a fluid. Note that is equal to the dynamic pressure for irrotational flow.
Elevation head is due to the fluid's weight, the gravitational force acting on a column of fluid.
Official source
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