FLUID MECHANICS

Instructor: Dr. Wael Mokhtar

Student: Jonathan DAnna


Class: EGR 365 Section: 01











GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY














Title: Lab #8 Drag Coefficient of a Sphere

Date of Submission: July 9, 2014

Introduction

The purpose of the laboratory exercise is to measure the drag coefficient of a sphere
as a function of Reynolds number.

Background

Three separate forces act on the object as it falls through a viscous fluid. A constant
gravitational force (

) acts downward on the object, a constant buoyant force (

)
acts upward, and a viscous drag force (

) opposes the motion of the object, which

increases with its increasing speed. The net drag force is primarily due to form drag
and is shown in the following equation:

()

where is the fluid density, is the projected frontal area of the object,

is the
drag coefficient, and is the velocity of the object. A sphere will be the falling object
in this experiment. As a sphere is released into a viscous fluid it will accelerate until
it reaches terminal speed and equilibrium is achieved. At this point a force balance
on a sphere yields the following:

()

where

is the terminal velocity of the object. The buoyancy force on a submerged

object can be found from equation (3).

()

where is the acceleration due to gravity, and is the volume of the submerged
object. For this experiment, if the weight of the sphere, the density of the water, and
the terminal speed are all known the drag coefficient can be determined. The
terminal speed of the objects can be determined by measuring the time required for
the objects to travel a known distance. It is critical that these measurements are
taken while the objects are at terminal velocity.

Method

For the experiment five (5) different spheres were used as the objects to be dropped
in the viscous fluid (water). These five spheres were ping-pong balls with BBs
added to the inside of the ball to allow for varying weights. The objects were
dropped one by one into a large tank of water. The time required for each ball to
travel a known distance was measured and recorded (see Table 1). The drag
coefficients were determined using equations (2) and (3). Also, the projected area
of each sphere was found using the equation for a circle:

Also, the volume of each sphere was found using the equation for a sphere:

Results and Discussion

Path length was calculated for each of five (5) balls using the mass and diameter of
each ball, as well as the assumed coefficient of drag of 0.45. The time was then
recorded for two trials dropping each ball over a fixed distance of 1.16m. From here
an average velocity for each ball was calculated. This could then be used with the
weight force and the buoyant force to determine the coefficient of drag. These
results are shown in Tables 1, 2, and 3 and Figure 1.

Table 1: Given & Measured Values for the System
Density of Water (kg/m^3) 999.97
Assumed CD 0.45
Distance of Fall (m) 1.16
Specific Gravity of Water (N/m^3) 9789
Viscosity of Water (Ns/m^2) 0.00112

Table 2: Measured Time for Each Sphere to Fall (1.16m)
Sphere
Mass
(kg)
Diameter
(m)
Time 1
(s)
Time 2
(s)
Avg Time
(s)
Path Length
(90% V
t
) (m)
1 0.037367 0.0375 2.35 2.07 2.21 0.221
2 0.033257 0.0374 2.76 2.10 2.43 0.198
3 0.036575 0.0396 3.40 3.21 3.31 0.194
4 0.045191 0.0396 2.07 2.35 2.21 0.240
5 0.040347 0.0375 2.03 1.90 1.97 0.239

Table 3: Calculated Values for Each Sphere
Sphere F
w
F
b
Area (m^2) Volume (m^3) Avg Velocity (m/s) CD
Reynolds
#
1 0.3666 0.2709 0.001104 2.76117E-05 0.527 0.6240 17645
2 0.3263 0.2687 0.001099 2.73913E-05 0.486 0.4430 16240
3 0.3588 0.3190 0.001232 3.2515E-05 0.351 0.5243 12420
4 0.4433 0.3190 0.001232 3.2515E-05 0.527 0.7271 18633
5 0.3958 0.2709 0.001104 2.76117E-05 0.591 0.6478 19787


The published value of CD for a smooth sphere in this range of Reynolds Numbers is
0.45. Based on this, the percent discrepancy can be calculated as using the following
equation:

|

|

The results for each sphere can be seen below in table 4.

Table 4: % Discrepancy of CD Values
Sphere % Discrepancy
1 38.68
2 1.56
3 16.51
4 61.59
5 43.96

Conclusion/Recommendations

The spheres did not always fall straight down, but zigzagged their way down to the
bottom. The discrepancy in CD values is evidence of the spheres not reaching
terminal velocity. This discrepancy could be due to a few things. First, the reaction
times for manually timing could be off. This could be fixed using a more advanced
timing mechanism. Second, each pin-pong ball had tape over the hole where the
BBs were inserted. This changed the surface of the sphere, no longer making it
smooth or spherical. Lastly, the tape over the hole was not a watertight seal, as the
ping-pong balls poured out water after the trials. This accumulation of water would
have changed the mass slightly for sphere.