Measure Viscosity With Marbles

But a do it yourselfer s kitchen has most of the tools necessary to obtain a simple measurement of a motor oil s viscosity.

Measure viscosity with marbles.

High viscosity fluids have a lot of resistance to changing their shape so the marble takes longer to fall. Understand the variables in the viscosity equation. Density is mass per unit volume of an object and is designated with a p in this equation you need to measure the density of both the sphere p s and the liquid p l it is passing through the radius of the sphere a can be found by measuring the circumference of the sphere and dividing that by 2π. Google classroom create assignment create announcement.

Dropping a sphere in a liquid is one of the oldest and easiest ways to measure viscosity. Design an experiment to test how the viscosity of honey changes with temperature. Racing marbles to measure viscosity. Viscosity is a measurement of a fluid s resistance to change or deformation or more simply put how thick it is.

To our knowledge the effective viscosity of marbles has never been considered yet. Repeat the experiment up to this step starting from preparing the graduated cylinder to measure the viscosity of each liquid for each of the remaining test liquids. In our experiment the marbles took longer to sink when dropped into the jars filled with corn syrup and honey than they did when dropped into the jars filled. You won t need to do any calculations in this activity but you will get to.

By amy cowen on august 27 2015 3 00 pm. Although it involves some knowledge of algebra a basic experiment can measure the time it takes for a round sphere to. Retrieve the marbles from the strainer and wash and dry the marbles and the graduated cylinder. For example honey is more viscous than water.

Honey is a great example. The viscosities ratio simply scales as r l r and l being respectively the radius of the marble and l the characteristic thickness of the. Viscosity can also be thought of as a measure of how thick a liquid is. In this paper we have demonstrated that lycopodium coated marbles have an effective viscosity larger that water drops.

The more viscous or thick a liquid is the longer it will take for an object to move through the liquid. There are scientific ways to measure viscosity with a viscometer. By measuring how long it takes the marble to fall and how far it travels you can figure out the liquid s viscosity. Have you ever noticed that some liquids are more difficult than others to squeeze from a container.