When you think of
hydraulics, you likely think of heavy machinery, like that used in
mining and manufacturing applications. However, while these
industries use hydraulic equipment, hydraulics itself is a branch of
science that seeks to understand and use liquid in motion.
Many people trace the
beginnings of modern hydraulics to Blaise Pascal, a French physicist.
In 1648, he discovered Pascal's law, which states that pressure on a
confined fluid will transmit equally in all directions throughout the
fluid. This discovery made possible the complex, precise, and
powerful equipment we use every day.
However, people have
used hydraulics for thousands of years. Learn more about some of the
ancient precursors to the modern hydraulics used today.
Shushtar Historical
Hydraulic System
In Persia, located in
modern-day Iran, the Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System spreads
over 594
acres, making it a massive feat of engineering for its time.
Parts of the system may be from the time of Darius the Great, around
500 BCE, though much of it was built in the third century AD.
The system contains
dams, canals, and tunnels, and it made farming possible for a wide
swath of land that would otherwise have been too dry. Additionally,
the hydraulics system supported watermills, carefully placed and
surrounded by safeguards to ensure that they wouldn't be damaged by a
sudden influx of water.
The center of the
system is Salasel Castel, which includes a tower to measure the water
level to enable control of the flow throughout the system. Today, the
Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System is an UNESCO World Heritage Site
based on its ingenuity and complexity.
Roman Aqueducts
The Roman Empire was
famous for its use of aqueducts, which are channels built to carry
water from its source to a distribution point. While many ancient and
modern civilizations used aqueducts, the Romans constructed them
extensively, and many of their distinctive bridged aqueducts still
stand today.
Roman engineers
designed aqueducts based on their understanding of how gravity
influences water: they used steeper gradients and narrower waterways
to make the water flow faster when needed, and they followed the
contours of the land when building. Additionally, they used devices
like sedimentation tanks to filter the water and sluices to regulate
the supply.
These aqueducts
provided water for everyday use in towns and cities, but they did
much more besides that. They carried water for public baths and
latrines, and workers used the running water to power milling and
mining operations. Additionally, the water provided irrigation for
farms and gardens.
Muslim-World Mills
During the Islamic
Golden Age, engineers in the Muslim world used hydropower
extensively. While Europe used mills mainly to grind grain, Muslim
world industry used mills for fulling (a step for producing wool
clothing), making paper, cutting lumber, building ships, creating
stamps, and manufacturing steel.
Additionally, these
societies pioneered using dams as a storable power source, something
we still do today. While they didn't use dams to produce electricity,
they used the water stored in dams to power mills effectively and
reliably.
Hydraulics powered
parts of the ancient world thanks to their scientific understanding
of water's movement, and we've been able to build on their work for
centuries to create today's complex machinery. Today, hydraulic
machinery relies on fluids like oils instead of water, and hydraulic
equipment is both ubiquitous and highly specialized.
If your business uses
hydraulic machinery, reach
outto Quad Fluid Dynamics, Inc. We've served Ohio businesses for
over 40 years, and we know exactly how to keep hydraulic machinery
running perfectly. Contact us today to learn more about our repair
and maintenance services, and we'll take care of your equipment.
