Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

Responsive image


Hydraulic head

Available difference in hydraulic head across a hydroelectric dam, before head losses due to turbines, wall friction and turbulence
Fluid flows from the tank at the top to the basin at the bottom under the pressure of the hydraulic head.
Measuring hydraulic head in an artesian aquifer, where the water level is above the ground surface

Hydraulic head or piezometric head is a specific measurement of liquid pressure above a vertical datum.[1][2]

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.

  1. ^ Mulley, Raymond (2004), Flow of Industrial Fluids: Theory and Equations, CRC Press, ISBN 978-0849327674, 410 pages. See pp. 43–44.
  2. ^ Chanson, Hubert (2004), Hydraulics of Open Channel Flow: An Introduction, Butterworth–Heinemann, ISBN 978-0750659789, 650 pages. See p. 22.

Previous Page Next Page