Laminar and turbulent flow in water

There are many ways to visualize flow, either for laminar or turbulent flows. A very convincing way to show laminar and turbulent flows is by the perturbations on the surface of a beam of water coming out of a cylindrical tube. Photographs, taken with a flash, show the nature of the flow of water in pipes. They clearly show the difference between turbulent and laminar flow, and let, in an accessible way, data be taken to analyse the conditions under which both flows are present. We found research articles about turbulence measurements, using sophisticated equipment, but they do not use the perturbation of the free surface of the flowing liquid to show or measure the turbulence.