Collection of Hydraulics

The museological Collection of the Area of Hydraulics includes measuring instruments for research, a few wooden or aluminium physical models of major Sicilian hydraulic works studied in the past in the laboratory within the ambit of the so-called university Third Mission, and a few old demonstrative apparatuses.

Introduction

The Collection of Research Instruments includes instruments for measuring flow velocity in open-channel flows (namely, rivers and channels), and for measuring hydrological and climatological quantities (such as, rainfall heigh, wind intensity, humidity in the air, etc.). The velocity measuring instruments consist in a few current meters having different sizes and characteristics, each suited for streams having different velocities and depths, for laboratory or field measuring. The instruments for hydrologic and climatologic quantities include recorders for: rainfall height (recording rain gauge), wind intensity (anemograph), humidity in the air (hygrograph), ambient temperature (thermograph), solar radiation intensity (pyranographer), light reflectance and transmittance (spectrophotometer), atmospheric pressure (barograph), evaporation (evaporigrapher). There are also a few topographic instruments that were used to correctly place the aforementioned hydrolocic and hydraulic instruments. These topographic instruments include an optical spirit level square and a surveyor's level.

The Collection of Hydraulic Models consists of several scale reproductions of selected parts of dam discharge works of several Sicilian reservoirs. This type of works, because of the complexity of the hydraulic phenomena involved, require precisely specific laboratory investigations on scale models of the works themselves. In detail, the Collection includes the stilling basins of the Sicilian reservoirs called Sciaguana, Pietrarossa and Blufi (the latter reservoir, actually, was never realized), the “duck-billed” spillway of reservoir Pietrarossa, and the shaft spillways of a few other reservoirs.

The Collection of Demonstrative Apparatuses includes several old devices used to show specific hydraulic phenomena to the students.

History

The museological Collection of the Area of Hydraulics is kept at the Laboratory of Hydraulics and hydraulic Constructions of the Department of Engineering. The first Laboratory of Hydraulics was founded in 1880 thanks to generous and strenuous care of the first professor of hydraulic subjects at the University of Palermo, Prof. Michele Capitò, who achieved it along with the establishment of the then Institute of Hydraulics, located in Via Archirafi. At that time, Degree in Engineering was issued from the School of Application for Engineers, a section of the Faculty of Science. The Faculty of Engineering was established just in 1936, and at the beginning of ’960s it moved to the present premises in Viale delle Scienze, where the Institute of Hydraulics and its Laboratory found their present final location. Subsequently, after several intermediate reorganizations, all the ex-Institutes of the old Faculty of Engineering merged, in 2018, in the present Department of Engineering.

The several demonstrative apparatuses nowadays in the museological Collection date back to the period preceding relocation of the Institute of Hydraulics to Viale delle Scienze. By contrast, the measuring instruments were acquired after relocation to Viale delle Scienze, when, under enlightened and hard-working directorship of Prof. Guglielmo Benfratello, the Institute carried out both scientific and Third Mission researches which required the use of various instruments being abreast with the times. The Collection of instruments, in fact, mirrors the research areas developed, which dealth with: hydraulic infrastructures, river and torrential streams, including sediment transport, soil erosion, rainfall analysis, hydrological balance, assessment and management of water resources in Sicily, and other important topics, subjects examined from both a scientific point of view and an applicative point of view in order for solid answers to specific territory problems to be given.