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520 S. Claudina St; Unit P
Anaheim, CA 92805
ph 714-808-0058

We had been performing peacock tail shows for some time when we decided to try and improve upon the industry standard peacock tail nozzle design as we had been frustrated with some of their inherent deficiencies from the start.  We were one of only a few companies making peacock tail nozzles at the time and we had wondered if the others we frustrated as we were, but, apparently they either weren't or they had just resigned to accepting the crappy performance characteristics of the industry standard PT nozzles.

There are basically three inherent problems with all PT nozzles.  Two of which impact the visual quality of playback imagery projected on them.  They are as follows:

1. The upper 1/4 of all PT water screens is thick and fluffy and produces fuzzy imagery in this upper portion.
   Reason: The planer sheet of water droplets that comprise the water screen’s surface are ejected vertically under high pressure from the nozzle which is usually just above water level.  This produces a semi circular shaped wall of water onto which imagery is rear projected.  The problem is that as the water is traveling upwards it eventually slows down, stalls and falls back down through the projections on its way back down to the lake or body of water that the system resides in.  As this fallout water collides with the upward moving water droplets it causes a cloud of mist in the upper portions of the screen.  This in turn produces a fuzzy look to the imagery on the upper 25% to 30% of the screen.  To keep the projected imagery sharp (especially from off center viewing angles) the screen surface must be kept as thin as possible.  The screen thickness begins at about 1/4 of an inch as it leaves the nozzle.  It expands to about 1 or 2 inches at about midway up through the screen.  It further expands to about 4 inches in the upper 3rd of the screen. As the water stalls and collides at the top of the screen the thickness can be from 1 to 3 feet thick depending on the overall height of the screen.  This thickness causes “extrusion” of the image making it fuzzy and sometimes impossible to distinguish.  The nozzle can be angled to cause this fallout water to fall either in front of or behind the screen which will help minimize the fuzzy effect, but, the effect it is always there.

2. Peacock tail screens are always 3 times wider than they are high.  This often excludes them from more confined venues and in our experience greatly limits their use. This also produces a screen profile in which the flanking portions are largely unuseable as they are too narrow.  Additionally, it is very inefficient and wasteful from an engineering/performance standpoint as you end up expending a great deal of horse power moving water that will in essence not be used.
   Reason:  A collusion of friction, angular thrust vectors versus vertical thrust vectors (man that’s a lot of V’s) and trajectory.  Suffice it to say that it’s an undeniable fact that affects the performance of all peacock tail nozzles.
   
    
3. The height of standard PT water screens is limited to about 60’ to 80’.  Some companies claim higher screens, but, upon empirical investigation it is almost always found to be more boast than fact.
   Reason: The law of diminishing returns.  Since the basic shape of a PT screen is circular it involves good old Phi.  This dictates that every time you double the diameter of a circle it occupies 4 times the volume.  When you consider the physics of pumping water, the amount of power required can get astronomical very quickly.  In fact that is why we developed the world's first (Chevy V-8 Driven water screen system).  It comes down to the fact that you can only propel a water droplet so far before friction, gravity and diffusion act to bring it to a stop.

We had thought a lot about how to remedy these problems, but, it wasn’t till I came across a video clip of a cheesy attempt at producing a water screen that the light bulb went on.  It was a clip of someone using a fire boat and fire hose sprayed in the air to generate the water screen.  The whole exercise was a miserable failure, but, it gave me an idea.  If we were to angle a PT nozzle at 90 degrees so that the water emitted would follow an arc shaped profile (sideways) then it wouldn’t stall and fall back through the projections after reaching the top of the screen.  Rather, it would continue in an arc profile through the projected imagery and exit the opposite side of the screen.

The water would in essence only pass through the projections once, hence, the “Single Pass” concept was borne.  This approach would also eliminate the fluffy/fuzzy area in the upper quarter of the screen as the very top of the screen would consist of a tight hose like stream.  It seemed that we would also be able to adjust the angle of the arc to create a screen that would be narrower/taller than to industry standard of 3 :1.  That would be a fantastic advantage.  Lastly, it also seemed that since the top of the screen would consist of a tight stream then we might be able to break the 80’ height barrier.  The stream would penetrate much further than does a mist spray.  It occurred that if it worked, we might have just solved all three of the biggest problems with PT water screens.

It also occurred that we would have to develop a curved aperture gap that would produce a solid arc along the top yet would fill in the lower portions of the screen with a dense sheet of water droplets.  It would have to form a dynamic gradient from top to bottom so that the upper portions didn’t slow down too early and fall through the lower portions of the screen.  It seems simple enough, but, the hydrodynamics proved to be extremely complicated.

The ideal gradient proved to be very difficult to achieve.  Water can do strange things when flowing through non linear shapes under high pressure. The aperture that shaped the screen and produced the correct gradient was a set of compound curves, so, the variables were almost infinite and at times it seemed like an impossible task.  We found that extremely small tweaks to these curves would have drastic effects on the output profile.  To make a long story short, we went through a lot of prototype profiles (say that fast 3 times), but, we finally started hitting on the right combination of curves.

It took about 3 weeks of dogged determination, some arguments and even throwing a few tools, but, one sunny afternoon we all sat around a work bench grinning and staring at a technical work of art.  We had just finished testing it and it worked perfectly.  We dubbed it N’LAP for Non Linear Aperture Profile technology and we had just perfected it.  We were even more excited at the thought of how much better our shows would look compared to the competition……….any competition.  We were the only ones in the world whom had this technology and could do things with peacock tail screens that no one else could even dream of.

Not long after we perfected the first nozzle we got a call from Bobby Miziker of The Miziker Entertainment Group in California.  Bobby was working on a show concept that included a peacock tail water screen system and additional water features.  The show would be outdoors and located out in front of a casino between a round outdoor theatre (in the shape of a giant Teepee) and the sidewalk in front of the casino.  The nightly production would showcase icons of Native American mythology and culture which were presented using live performers and a spectacular array of special effects.

The client wanted a 30’ tall water screen, however, the venue/pool would only allow about 60’ to 70’ of recovery area, so, a standard peacock tail screen would not have worked as it would have required 90’ to100’ of width.  At first I told him that they would have to lower the screen height to about 15’ or 20’ high due to the limited recovery area and he said that much of the audience wouldn’t be able to see the projections at that height and they would rather nix the water screen concept.  I then told him that we had just finished developing a new technology that might alleviate the
recovery problem, but, that it was brand new technology that we had very recently perfected and hadn’t been installed anywhere yet.  I also told him that if it worked it would be a world’s first install in that it would be “a big screen in a small space”.  It really was the perfect application for our new SP system.  He was convinced it was worth the risk and we got the job.

There was an additional water feature (fountain) involved in the show concept that was fairly straight forward in design.  We decided to apply our MPC (Multi Pump Chassis) approach to the water features and designed a stainless steel chassis that would house both the water screen pumps as well as the fountain pump.  We decided to use 3 pumps to drive the water screen for redundancy.  In keeping with the MPC technology the whole chassis would be covered with stainless steel perf to form a very large filtration surface.  We designed the chassis to sit in a sump pit just a half of an inch larger than the chassis itself.  In this configuration the top of the chassis would be removable for complete access to all internal workings without having to remove the chassis from the pool.  The chassis would also contain 4 lifting points just in case the system ever needed to be removed.  The chassis/system was connected to the venue plumbing runs via quick disconnect fittings for rapid removal if service was required.

We designed a DMX based controller that would allow separate control of all 3 WS pumps and VFD control of the fountain pump. This control panel we integrated into the Viejas show control system.

The installation was a complete success and got rave reviews on its opening night.

The SP/NLAP nozzle technology is available only through Mirage WaterWorks and can be applied to displays as small as a swimming pool or as large as the ocean.

Special thanks go to Bobby, Ron and Ryan at The Miziker Entertainment Group fro giving our SP technology a chance to shine, Maris Ensing at MAD systems, and Tim at Viejas Casino for doing a great job of managing the Casino’s involvement in the project.

Mirage WaterWorks, Inc.
520 S. Claudina St; Unit P; Anaheim, CA 92805
ph 714-808-0058
info@miragewaterworks.com

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