Poiseuille's Law: A Historical Background

In 1846, Jean Louis Poiseuille published a paper on the experimental research of the motion of liquids in small diameter tubes. Poiseuille was a physician who had been trained in physics and mathematics. He was interested in the forces that affected the flow of blood in the smaller blood vessels of the body. He performed his experiments in capillary-sized glass tubes with water--at the time, the non-existence of anti-coagulants prevented the use of blood. Using compressed air, Poiseuille forced water through the tubes and measured the resulting flow.

By varying the amount of pressure applied and the diameter of the tube, Poiseuille measured the effects on the amount of fluid flowing. As a result of these experiments, he learned that the rate at which fluid passes through the tube increases proportionately to the pressure applied as well as being proportional to the fourth power of the diameter or the tube. However, this experimental result did not give the constant of proportionality. A few years later, two scientists established the exact relationship. Because of his initial pioneering work, this relationship is named Poiseuille's Law.