Sciencemadness Discussion Board

physics question: liquid transport/wick system

math - 26-2-2012 at 16:14

Hello,

I'd like to know how to calculate the transport of a certain volume of water in a vertical wick system.

Said system is as follows:

one end of a rope, hanging vertically 5 meters, stands in a bucket of water. The other hand is embedded in a sponge located 5 meter above the bucket.

Assuming that water evaporates from the sponge over time (thus making overwetting not an issue), I'd like to know which rope diameter/material would be needed to transport, say, 0.03 liters/hour up in the sponge.

Also I'd like to know what are the height limits for said system and if a hollow plastic tube would be more efficient at trasporting water by capillary action.

I include a very simple drawing, if I had better IT skills and hardware I'd have uploaded one drawn by hand.



Thank you very much ;)

Hexavalent - 27-2-2012 at 12:46

You even state yourself that this is a physics question, yet you fail to notice that you are on a chemistry forum.