Heron’s Fountain in Sculpture

BY JAKE McRAE

Throughout my time here at UPS, my two favorite pursuits have been physics and sculpture. I am majoring in physics and do my best to take sculpture and art classes when I can. I have often thought about the ways that I could incorporate physics into my sculptural work, perhaps by incorporating electronic components or making art in response to ideas within physics. This semester I found an opportunity to realize this intersection by applying some ideas of fluid dynamics to create a sculptural iteration of a Heron’s fountain. I began work on this sculpture wanting to find a way to introduce a twist to the normal mechanics of the prototypical Heron’s fountain while also creating an aesthetically pleasing sculpture.

Heron’s fountain is a hydraulic machine that uses air and water pressure to circulate water in a fountain. It was invented by the inventor Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD. These fountains are composed of three chambers which are interconnected by three pipes, which can be seen in the diagram below (Figure 1). The bottom chamber (labeled C) is the air supply container, the middle (labeled B) is the water supply, and the top (labeled A) is the basin that receives the water. To initiate the flow of the fountain, water is added to the basin and flows down through pipe 1 into chamber C. This incoming water displaces the air already in the chamber which is forced up through pipe 2 into chamber B. That air pushes the water in chamber B up through pipe 3 where it is reintroduced into the basin and the process repeats over again. (1) However, this is not an infinitely recycling fountain. The fountain will only work for as long as there is water in chamber B and air in chamber C. So the length of the water flow is constrained by the size of the chambers and the speed of water flow, which is determined primarily by the width of the pipes. Once these two chambers have been depleted of their respective supplies of fluid, the chambers need to be reset by flipping over the entire fountain so that the water in chamber C can be transferred to chamber B, leaving mainly air in chamber C. (1)

My design differs slightly from this typical arrangement. My fountain includes four chambers and six pipes. I chose to split chamber B into two chambers (the diamond shapes) and then I added additional pipes to support the extra chambers and provide symmetry. I encountered some difficulties while crafting appropriate forms for the chambers and ensuring that the entire piece was airtight, which is essential for the physics to power the fountain. Ultimately, I really enjoyed the challenge that this piece provided me as well as the opportunity to blend my interests in physics and sculpture. This intersectionality is something I plan to continue to work with and develop in my future artistic endeavors.