Discussion & Conclusion

This lab focused on how to determine the viscosity of a given fluid. Viscosity can be
defined as the measure of a fluids resistance to flow and describes the moving fluids internal
friction. The magnitude of terminal velocity for a falling sphere within a liquid was found and
used to determine viscosity. This is calculated when a falling sphere is at a constant velocity
(terminal velocity). This is because the only three forces acting on the sphere are the spheres
weight, the buoyancy force and the drag force. By measuring the time and distance covered by
the object while in terminal velocity, these three forces could be determined to find viscosity.
The Data from each sphere did not yield the exact values as the others due to a variety of
errors. Using the stopwatch effectively enough to record how long each sphere took to fall
proved to be more difficult for the larger spheres due to the higher velocity. This is a reason why
we believe the smallest sized sphere yielded the most accurate result since the stopwatch was
most effectively used at a slower velocity. When the spheres were dropped into the cylinder it
was not consistently in the centre of the cylinder. The varying distances between the sphere and
the cylinder wall could have thrown off the viscosity results. Another source of error came from
determining when to start the stopwatch because we had to establish when the sphere had entered
terminal velocity. Since this required a few seconds in itself to realize that the ball was travelling
in constant velocity, this definitely could have caused errors with our results.
Equation [6] from the lab manual assumed that quiescent fluid extent is infinite.
However, this is not the case. The presence of the cylinder wall increases the viscosity above its
actual value. In this lab we do not take into account where in the cylinder the ball was dropped.
The closer the sphere is to the wall the more it is affected by friction. This is evident because of
the larger spheres that fall slower than what the equation predicts. This also validates the earlier
assumption that the smaller sized sphere yields a more accurate result.