how does a siphon work...

[imapremed]

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can someone explain how a siphon works and why water flows from intake (low pressure - for a siphon) to the outtake (high pressure - for a siphon)

thanks!

 

[bambam02]

Water doesnt flow from low pressure to high pressure, it flows from high pressure to low pressure. This is not exactly what is going on in a siphon tho.

A siphon uses gravitational potential energy to move the water.

Use Bernoulli's equation to understand the siphon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphon use that to see the math and some very nice pictures. scroll down to bernoulli's equation..

 

[imapremed]

Water doesnt flow from low pressure to high pressure, it flows from high pressure to low pressure. This is not exactly what is going on in a siphon tho.

A siphon uses gravitational potential energy to move the water.

Use Bernoulli's equation to understand the siphon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphon use that to see the math and some very nice pictures. scroll down to bernoulli's equation..

ok i read everything and im still a bit confused... so i did some reading and rechecked my berkley book and so... the pressure difference in a siphon is still high pressure at intake and low pressure at out take but the HYDROSTATIC pressure must be that the hydrostatic pressure is lower at the intake end and the hydrostatic presssure is higher at the outtake end - since teh area of the two ends is the same (we assume a uniformly shapped pipe, by the continutiy equation the velocity at the two points is the same) and thus the two sides are equal to each other (showing the inverse relationship through bernoulies principle aka Pintake+ hydrostaticintake (which is rowgh) = Pouttake + hydrostaticouttake (which is rowgh). thanks for the help!