Canal Lock Displacement

by Rick Blanton

Submitted : Fall 2010

The initial goal of this project was to determine the time it would take a pump to raise the water level to raise a boat in a lock on a canal. It was determined that it would take roughly 12 minutes for a 30 horsepower pump to raise the water level in a 300ft² lock from 10 feet to 20 feet. This was calculated using the two formulas, W = F x D and P = W / T. The primary conclusion drawn from this was that there are still several options to reduce the time needed to raise the water level, in order to ultimately increase time efficiency.

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