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Explanation of experiments with fluids - Succeed in Physical Science. Also refer to physics, liquids, gases, measurement, volume, density, pressure, depth, Ron Kurtus, School for Champions. Copyright © Restrictions

Experiments with Fluids:
Relationship Between Water Pressure and Depth

by Ron Kurtus (revised 13 March 2000)

When you you go swimming, you have probably experienced that the deeper you go under water, the more pressure you feel on your ears. This observation makes you curious. How you can prove or demonstrate that pressure increases with depth.

Hypothesis

Your theory or guess is that pressure increases with depth. How can you prove this concept?

Logic of solution

You know that as you turn up the pressure in a hose, the water squirts out further. So, there is a relationship between pressure and how far the water squirts.

If you had a container with a hole in it, and if it is true that pressure increases with depth, then the water should squirt out further the higher the water level. You could show this by having one hole and measuring how far the water squirts as you change the depth of the water in the container, or you could put several holes at different heights and show how the water squirting varies. 

Note: If you use several holes, they all should be the same size. As you will see in the next experiment the hole size is another variable. You don't want to mix variables in an experiment.

Materials

Steps

  1. Punch holes in side of the container at one inch intervals.
  2. Fill the container with water.
  3. Measure the distance from the container that the water squirts out of each hole.
  4. Plot a graph of depth (distance of hole from top of water level) versus distance water squirts from can.

Outcome

This experiment should verify that since the water squirts out further with increasing depth, that the water pressure increases with depth.

This is a round-about way of proving or verifying a principle.

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Where can you go from here?

Experiments

Relationship Between Water Pressure and Depth

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