Viscosity of Fluids Lab: Ball Drop Method

Objectives
 Solidify the concept of viscosity through experimentation
 Test viscosities of different samples by measuring the velocity of a sphere falling through a fluid

Theory and equations

Viscosity is a fluid property that measures the resistance of a fluid to flow and can simply be thought of as
the “thickness” of a fluid. Fluids that have a high viscosity, such as honey or molasses, have a high
resistance to flow while fluids with a low viscosity, such as a gas, flow easily. The resistance to
deformation within a fluid can be expressed as both absolute (or dynamic) viscosity, µ [Ns/m2], and
kinematic viscosity, υ [m2/s].

Absolute viscosity is determined by the ratio of the shear stress to the shear rate of the fluid. The shear
stress is dependent on the fluid’s resistance force to flow over the area of the plate while the shear rate is
the equivalent to the fluid’s gradient.

𝐹
𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝜏
µ= = = 𝐴
𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝛿µ
𝛿𝑦

While absolute viscosity is able to quantifiably compare various liquids and gases on the same scale, it
does not account for an important characteristic of fluids – the density (ρ). Kinematic viscosity (υ) is
highly dependent on density and is measured by the time required for a specific volume of fluid to flow
through a capillary or restriction.
µ
𝜐=
𝜌

Measuring Fluid Viscosity from Drag on an Immersed Body

The drag force on an immersed body is in the direction of the flow; thus it works to retard the motion of a
body through a fluid. The diagram below is a schematic of a sphere of radius a falling freely in a fluid.
The weight of the sphere is
W   gV b , the buoyancy force is FB  gV , and D represents the drag
force acting on the sphere. Here  is the density of the fluid, b is the density of the sphere, and V is the
volume of the sphere. In the schematic, the sphere is assumed to have reached its terminal velocity Ut.
When it is released into the fluid, it accelerates to the terminal velocity. Once this velocity is reached, it
no longer accelerates and all the forces on the sphere are in equilibrium.

D FB

a Ut

W
.

The drag force on immersed bodies with simple shapes can be correlated to the speed with which the
body moves through the fluid. This is achieved by specifying the drag coefficient CD defined by

drag D
CD  1
inertial force 2  U 2 S ,

where D is the drag,  is the density of the fluid, U is the speed of the fluid approaching the body, and S
is the projected frontal area, i.e., the maximum area perpendicular to the flow direction. The  subscript
indicates “freestream” quantities, i.e. quantities that are measured in the undisturbed fluid far upstream of
the body. In general, the overall drag force is composed of a component purely from friction and another
component, called profile drag that results from the finite size and shape of the body. A number of
experiments have been performed to determine CD for several geometries. These experiments show that
the variation of CD depends primarily on a parameter called the Reynolds number Re, defined by

inertial force  U  L
Re  
viscous force  ,

where L is some characteristic length (diameter in the case of the sphere) and the other quantities are as
defined earlier. A flow with a relatively large value for Re is dominated by inertial forces, thus appears
nearly inviscid. In the case of a very low-Re flow, called creeping flow or Stokes’ flow, the inertial forces
can be neglected and Newton’s second law of motion reduces to Stokes’ equation for a sphere, valid for
Re < 1,
D  6 Ua .

If the velocity (speed) V in this equation is the terminal velocity Ut of the sphere of radius a, it provides a
means for computing the absolute viscosity  by writing the equation for the balance of forces on the
sphere,

D  FB  W .

Or substituting with Stokes’ equation, we have finally,

W  FB W  FB
 
6 U t a 3 U t d ,

where d is the sphere diameter. In the following experiment, use this relation to compute and compare the
viscosities of a few common liquids.
Ball Drop Experiment
This experiment uses one of the oldest and easiest ways to measure viscosity: we will simply see how fast
a sphere falls through a fluid. The measurement involves determining the velocity of the falling sphere.
This is accomplished by dropping each sphere through a measured distance of fluid and measuring how
long it takes to traverse the distance. Thus, you know distance and time, so you also know velocity, which
is distance divided by time. Additionally you will have to measure the mass and diameter of the sphere.

The formula for determining absolute viscosity () is :

1  d 2   S   F   g 
VT   
  18 

Where
d = diameter of sphere
S = density of sphere = m/V = (mass of sphere/volume of sphere)
F = density of fluid
g = acceleration of gravity = 9.81 m/s2
VT = Terminal Velocity = D/t = (distance sphere falls)/(time of it takes to fall)

Materials
 Thermometer
 Graduated Cylinders
 Airsoft BB balls
 Syringes
 Stopwatch
 Test Liquids (e.g. liquid soap, corn syrup, vegetable oil, motor oil, etc)

Result table
1. Measure the diameter and weight of a BB ball and compute the volume and density in Table 1..

Table 1: Properties of a BB ball.

Value Units Value Units

Diameter (d) 0.00238 m 0.00154 m
Mass (m) 0.000055 kg 0.0000161 kg
Volume (V) 7.06×10-9 m3 1.91×10-9 m3
Density (S) 7790 Kg/m3 13529.4 Kg/m3

2. Calculate the density of the liquid samples.

 Table 2: Properties of liquid samples.

Cylinder #
Liquid Product Oil
Weight of empty cylinder 595.469 g
Weight of cylinder + liquid 1501.899 g
Density (F) 906.43 kg/m3

1. Drop a ball into the center of the cylinder and record time between timing marks. Repeat three
trials for each fluid sample and record data in Table 3.
a. Alternative timing method: Record video of ball drop and import in Logger Pro for video
analysis to determine time.
2. Calculate the velocity for each drop time in Table 3.

Table 3: Time of ball drop in each liquid sample.

Cylinder # 1 2
Liquid Product Oil Oil
Trial 1
Ball Drop Time (sec) 1.70 1.25
Distance traveled (mm) 140 140
Velocity (m/s) 0.08 0.112
Trial 2
Ball Drop Time (sec) 0.63 0.59
Distance traveled (mm) 140 140
Velocity (m/s) 0.22 0.24
Average velocity (m/s) 0.15 0.18
1. Plot the quantity in brackets from the absolute viscosity formula versus velocity.
2. Find the slope of the line to find the absolute viscosity of each sample.
3. Compute the kinematic viscosity of each sample.