Instrument for measuring water-spray blast force

A system for measuring dynamic force of impacting air/water spray comprising:

• means for determining velocity of an impacting spray of air and water, said air/water spray velocity determining means being aligned with the longitudinal flow of said air/water spray, having an laterally extending orifice receiving said air/water spray, and having a first differential pressure transducer for producing a signal representative of velocity of said air/water spray at said orifice;
• means adjacent said air/water spray velocity determining means for collecting at least one volume of water, said water volume collecting means being aligned with the longitudinal flow of said air/water spray, having a laterally extending opening to receive and collect water of said air/water spray, and having a second differential pressure transducer for producing a signal representative of a collected volume of water of said air/water spray;
• and
• means connected to receive said velocity representative signal from said air/water spray velocity determining means and said water volume representative signal from said water volume collecting means for producing an indication of the magnitude of impacting dynamic force produced.

A method of measuring dynamic force of impacting air/water spray comprising the steps of:

• receiving a longitudinal flow of an impacting spray of air and water in a laterally extending orifice of a pitot-tube section;
• producing signals representative of pressure representative of velocity of said air/water spray at said orifice by a first differential pressure transducer coupled to said pitot-tube section;
• receiving and collecting volumes of water of said longitudinal flow of said air/water spray through a laterally extending opening of a rain gage section adjacent to said pitot-tube section;
• producing signals representative of said volumes of water collected in said rain gage section by a second pressure differential transducer;
• and
• indicating the magnitude of dynamic force attributed to impacting air/water spray in said opening by a computer-based control/readout module connected to receive said velocity representative signals and said water volume representative signals.