A new type of water channel with density stratification

The novel idea is to use a disk pump to drive each fluid layer independently round a closed-return density-stratified water channel. A small-scale model was built and tested to demonstrate the feasibility of the idea. A hydrogen-bubble technique was used for both flow visualization and velocity measurement. Density measurements were made with an electrical conductivity probe developed by the authors. The tests have demonstrated the usefulness of such a facility, especially for long steady-state experiments in density-stratified flows.