Inventor of the Uniflow Tank

I also posted this on RCO, but not everyone goes there. I got started looking into this by a letter from R. Miebach of Cologne Germany, in the Jan. '64 Aeromodeller.

The uniflow tank, also known as a Mariotte bottle or Mariotte syphon, was invented by Edme Mariotte (1620 - 1684) of Dijon, France. It was probably published after his death in 1686.

He also made the first wind tunnel and was the first person to test a model in a wind tunnel.

Isn't it amazing how far back some of this stuff goes? Maybe we should start calling them Mariotte tanks.

We used to measure frequency by kilocycles and megacycles and that meant something. Now we call it kilohertz and it sounds like some kind of pain killer. It doesn't make sense.

We used to measure temperature in centigrade and that meant something. Now it is celsius and that means nothing.

It is bad enough that people have trouble understanding the principle of the uniflow tank, but, at least the name gives it a description. So I guess, to follow the trend of scientific thinking, we should rename it something that makes no sense at all.

I vote for calling it the algore tank. Give him a little time and he would take credit for that one, too.

Leonard --

No chance of anyone topping the alogore tank line!

Well I just have to say something about this one!

Actually Leonard a cycle (whether kilo of Mega) has no real meaning (except for uni-, bi-, and tri- !). Actually we use to say kcycles per second. Frequency has a unit of inverse seconds (1/s).

Anyway to honor some of the physicists who did the pioneering work back in the 1800's (and which we base almost our entire economy today on), the frequency unit was named in honor oh Hertz. It is a derived unit. Other names are Volts (Volterra), Amps (Ampere), Ohms (resistance), Farad(day) (Capacitance), Henries, Coulombs (charge), Kelvin (temperaure...). So there is consistancy, although in the land of the free (and the inch, pound, gallon) most of the populace stays blissfully ignorant.

In the same way Uniflow makes no real sense either (one flow?) unless you have made the neuron connection between the name and the device. "Constant flow" might make more sense.

Anyway I'm completely "Bushed".

Durn... I was just getting ready propose that henceforth we judge the pattern in terms of "Neumanns" instead of "points".

I guess we ought to quit honoring Giovanni Battista Venturi (1746-1822) as well. But what should we call that other temperature scale that has 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling temperatures of water? The CXXC scale?

I must admit that I'm more comfortable with measuring light intensity in candlepower than I am with Einsteins. In this case the change in nomenclature represents a huge change in understanding of the nature of light.

I have been an amateur radio operator since the early 50's, so the change to hertz was a bit hard to accept. But the above was all in fun.

Now we could score the pattern in "Aldriches". Hmmm.

Jim,

I got interested in this subject a couple of years ago when I stumbled across a book (50's or 60's era) on C/L modeling by a former editor of Aeromodeler (Moulton, I think). In his discussion of fuel tanks, he covers uniflow theory and mentions Mariotte and the 'Mariotte syphon'. I did a bit of follow up research including additional reading and performing a vent position study with just gravity feed. I used a graduated cylinder to measure liquid flow as the syphon drained. I then graphed the whole series. I was going to do a PAMPA article on this, but with the current trend to a smaller, more economical publication, I will probably abstain.

Interestingly, I discovered in my reading, that Mariotte syphons (uniflows) are used in other present day applications, such as agricultural liquid fertilizer spreaders. Research pays off!

George Aldrich says that Bob Palmer used a type of uniflow tank in the early '50's, but nobody noticed, I guess. You'd think that Veco would have made them per The Master's design. I guess Bob was not all that involved with Veco? The Edmonds Reguflow (FAI Team Race) tank was the first tank I recall reading about, probably in the early '60's. A great 2001 to all, Steve

Looking at old Aeromodellers, I think the Palmer-type tank was much more appreciated in England and Europe than here. I've seen it several times on older stunt model plans, and there is one in Claus Makis's latest airplane. The response to the letter in Aeromodeller cited above mentioned both the Palmer tank and the reguliflow tank.

I'm flying a Palmer tank at the moment, and I'm thinking it is running rich on the overheads. Have to fly some more to be sure of what I'm seeing though. Otherwise it seems fine.