Capillary Action ~ Something for Nothing?

Have you actually set this up and verified that the scenario really happens?

No, it's a thought experiment.

Well.........

This sounds like a job for Kastrupsky and his floating energy barges.

Won't the capillary force which pulls the water up the tube be sufficient to stop the drip forming and dropping?
Ah, but then you'll say you'll open up the bore at the end of your drip tube....but then I'll say the water won't flow into the widened portion as the cappillary action will pull it back.
Then you'll say what if you get a wizard to build it?
Aand I'll say is this a pretty lady wizard with long black hair and stockings? Then someone will post a picture and the whole thread will get pulled...
just sayin'
Del

Ahh... Thanks again for the good laugh Del.

You never disappoint.

Sandra and Nicole want to remind you to be careful what you wish for.

Doorman ! Awesome page ! Thank you. i had no hope of knowing the right answer otherwise. R(eally)G(reat)A. i wish i had a few more identities to add to the GA vote

Great tee shirt .... and contents too.

Thanks for the GA votes, guys!

As passingtongreen tells us, a capillary motor is not quite what he is describing, but it is along the same line of thought.

The Unworkable Ideas site is a constant inspiration for the Research and Development division of LynDoor™ Industries. We have poured thousands of manhours into varied over-unity devices, and we have managed to perfect several of them. We are proud to be the exclusive manufacturer and supplier of the most intricate, complicated and expensive devices that demonstrate there is no "Something for Nothing".

No, the logic is different. I know why the "Capillary Motor" doesn't work, and that reason doesn't apply to my concoction.

Very good site! GA!

"both tubes will fill with water"

Or, the action of the second tub being inserted into the meniscus of the first tube will cause the water in the first tube to collapse back onto the original surface and then begin the climb all over again.

You can't get there from here.

This has been around for almost a century. The first law cannot be violated. Water wont drip. However, Sap does rise to great heights in the giant Redwood trees.

Bioramani

It is capillary action that carries the sap to the highest points of trees, including the giant redwoods.These can be several hundred feet tall.There should be a way to exploit this principle.

In a tree, the capillary force bring the water up but it is the solar energy that removes the "surplus" water from the leaves -using evaporation- allowing for more water to be sucked up.

Once again, you need some source of energy to get continuous flow.

Sorry for the cold shower...

Did you ever see a freshly pruned grape vine dripping sap from the runners before any leaves had developed?

No leaves, no solar action.??

Drop the end of a roll of toilet tissue into the commode, and eventually, the roll will start dripping water onto the floor.

Water and sap moving in a plant have nothing to do with wicking. This Wiki article about the cohesion-tension theory will help explain, and this article about the pressure flow hypothesis explains how hydrostatic pressure contributes to sap flow.

You are correct. It is the same that allow maple water to be harvested without vacuum pumps. Although, the ambient temperature have a large effect on that one. Too cold or too warm doesn't work. I don't know exactly why.

A typical 30 cm dia maple tree pumps about 6-8 litres a day (8h) to about 2m high. The capture area that the tap seems to cover is roughly 100 cm2 from the wood discoloration seen when we cut old maple trees for lumber and hit an old hole.

Since there isn't much loss of water up to the top where branches split the flow, we could assume the same pumping capacity up to 10m. That gives E=mgh = 8Kg x 10m/s2 x 10m = 800J in 8hours. This gives 800/(8h x 3600s) = 27mW of power produced by 100cm2 of pumping surface, 10 m high.

If your house use about 5KW continuously and the water flow to electricity conversion is 30%, you need 5KW / (27mW / 100cm2) / 30% = 61 millions cm2 of pumping surface or 6.2 Km2.

Is it feasible? You need clean water to avoid clogging the capillary surface. Probably need to enclose the overall assembly. Would it work under all conditions above freezing? Would it ever pay for itself? Probably not ever unless the material grows for free and is self maintained, just like a tree...

Another use would be a water pump but it would be continually plugged.

And maybe 10¹² (or 10¹⁵ or 10¹⁸) dripping vines or wads of paper could produce 10⁶ watts of power?

This process is called transpiration.

Amazing the tidbits one remembers fron high school. I graduated in 1965.

"It is capillary action that carries the sap to the highest points of trees, including the giant redwoods.These can be several hundred feet tall.There should be a way to exploit this principle."

There is a way to exploit this principle... Lumber.

Tornado,

Not sure if it helps solve the problem, but you might like this.

You neglect the pressure difference between the outside of the upper end of tube no.1 (there the pressure is as ambient air pressure) and inside the water at the same location: there the pressure is lower according to the curvature of the fluid meniscus (same as given by height of water column).

So the next tube - smaller in diameter - will be able to suck there but will not be able to shed free falling drops. These need also a pressure difference to be shed - to overcome the curvature that sucks back the fluid. This needed pressure difference can only be derived from height-difference, so the location to shed drops has to be below the bottom contact of the first tube.

No energy gain.

Droplets only if open end is below the water level at sucking location!

RHABE

As said, "sap is drawn to the tips of high trees..." . . . Then it falls in abundance upon my car. :(

"sap is drawn to the tips of high trees..."

Ah, now that i have retired happily, the mystery of those saps who rose to the stratosphere in my company, following the law "The less the ability, the higher the guy will rise in GE the organisation" is now clear. "Sap rises to the top" Thank you.

Is there some such native intelligence statement which has septic tanks in it ? Hmmm. Will recall it sometime....

Scum floats on the top, too. (Sort of like the current U.S. economy.) Sludge, on the other hand, goes to the bottom.

(A sociology primer for these times??)

Kind of like the "Peter Principle."

I know it was named after the author of the book, but I couldn't help thinking it had a double meaning... if you know what I mean.

A long time ago, I had a similar thought experiment, only I was wondering how high a very thin "sponge", stretching up as far as needed (until a limit is reached) would soak up water, if in contact with a large body of water. That is also capillary action, as I understand it. Do you think the same limitations apply? And would it be any different for salt (oceanic) water as opposed to fresh water? At the time I was thinking more in terms of a sponge as an efficient pump -- a way to transport water from point A to point B. Compressing a portion of the sponge at the "receiving" end would complete the transport. Energy to compress the sponge being the only energy needed for the process.

As an additional though, a sponge might very well provide a great environment for biological contamination, so there might more than one problem if the water was to be consumed at the receiving end.

Humph.

I finally figured it out for myself. When I posted, I was sure that I would get a quick, pertinent, answer. I did, however, see that some people mistake scum for cream or vice versa.

Well?

Please let us know how it ended up.

Sorry Doorman, I had the good intention of responding, but a trip to the ER with pneumonia, and another problem that delayed my discharge got in the way.

I thought about a beaker of water with a meniscus. I thought that if I dipped a capillary in the water, it would run up inside to be topped with another meniscus, so it would be the same and I could dip another capillary into this new meniscus and the water would climb up inside the new capillary.......

What I missed was that the water in the beaker was supported by the bottom and sides and the force field of the meniscus merely shaped it, but with the capillary, the meniscus supported the column of water inside. In any additional capillary, the meniscus would have to support the first column plus any new lift in the new capillary.

I have grape vines that I trim off some in the fall. Every spring I get occasional drips (seems to be water) from the cut off vines for a few days. Some of these drips are from up to 6 feet off the ground. Can any of you naysayers explain this?

It might be osmosis. The plant takes water and chemicals from the ground, and transforms them in other chemicals in leafs or wherever. The plant skin acts as a barrier for this new chemicals. The concentration of this chemicals are higher in the plant, which attracts the water from outside the plant (osmotic membrane) from the wet medium. Inside the plant, accordingly, is the osmotic pressure, that can be very high. If you cut the steam, leaf, whatever, you remouve the barier/membraine, releasing the pressure. This is only a hipotesis, of how it might work.

See #30.