Bernoulli's Principle

What is Bernoulli's Principle?

Along a streamline in steady, incompressible, inviscid flow, increased velocity produces decreased static pressure. It falls directly out of conservation of energy, and explains everything from aircraft lift to why a shower curtain billows inward.

The five clues

Engineerdle #3 described Bernoulli's Principle with five clues, revealed one at a time from hardest to most direct. Each clue points at a different property of the concept.

1. 01It links two properties of a moving fluid that most people assume are unrelated.
2. 02It falls out of conservation of energy applied along a streamline.
3. 03Speed the flow up and something else must come down to compensate.
4. 04It explains why a shower curtain pulls inward and how a carburettor draws fuel.
5. 05Named after a Swiss mathematician from a famously argumentative family of mathematicians.

More Fluid Mechanics concepts

• Venturi EffectPuzzle #50
• ViscosityPuzzle #46
• Reynolds NumberPuzzle #41
• Newtonian FluidPuzzle #36
• Non-Newtonian FluidPuzzle #31
• Pascal's LawPuzzle #13