EXPERIMENT ..

Air Drag on Coffee Filters

Objective: The objective of this lab is to understand the concepts of the air drag force and the terminal velocity. To experimentally confirm that the drag force is proportional to the square of velocity and the area of falling objects. Apparatus: Three coffee filters, two-meter stick, stopwatch. Theory: Objects which are travelling through the air experience the resistance drag force acting in the opposite direction to their motion. These forces are studied in aerodynamics, an important subfield of physics. Expression for the drag force exerted upon objects travelling through the air is given by:
D Av 2 ,

(1)

where A is the cross-sectional area of the object and v is its instantaneous velocity. Coefficient depends on the air density

cd 2 , (2) where 1.2 kg m at room temperature (300K or 80 F). The factor c d is the shape dependent drag coefficient.
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Table 1. Drag coefficients c d for different shapes 0.25 0.295 0.7 1.01.1 1.7 1.982.05 Toyota Prius bullet (not ogive, at subsonic velocity) a typical bicycle plus cyclist skier coffee filter flat plate perpendicular to flow

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If an object, say a coffee filter is let go from rest, it will start as a free falling body, but with time, as its velocity grows, it will experience a stronger drag force, leading to a reduced acceleration. Eventually the drag force will become as big as the gravity force at which point the velocity of the object ceases to grow and becomes equal to the terminal velocity. The Newtons equation for a body falling in the air reads

mg Av2 ma

or

dv dt g Av2 m

(3)

This first order differential equation can be resolved by separation of variables as

dv dt g Av 2 m

or

g Av
0

dv

(4)

which leads to the following expression for velocity as a function of time for an object falling from rest v(t ) vterm tanh ( gt vterm ) , where

vterm mg A

(5)

is the terminal velocity. From Eq. (1) and (5) it can be seen that when object 2 travels with terminal velocity the drag force Dterm Avterm mg and the object is in dynamic equilibrium. The time to reach velocities close to terminal for an object starting from rest can be estimated as t term vterm g (see Fig. 1). In many cases tterm is much less than the whole time of fall Tf and it can be assumed that objects travel with constant terminal velocity. The ratio tterm/Tf can serve as a figure of merit which helps determine whether the object is in free fall or is falling with terminal velocity. In this lab coffee filters are falling with terminal velocity practically
Figure 1. Terminal velocity vterm as a function of time t (red curve). Brown dashed line represents velocity of a free falling object. -2-

during their whole motion and the terminal velocity can be found as vterm=L/Tf, where L is the height of fall. Procedure: 1. Weigh a large amount of coffee filters (50-100 filters) using a scale balance and find the mass of one coffee filter. 2. Calculate the magnitude of the drag force from the dynamic equilibrium condition D = mg. 3. Place a two-meter stick in the vertical position and from its height let an air filter go. Observe that the filter experiences a steady constant-velocity fall. Using a stopwatch measure the time of fall. The filter should be released bottom down and should fall vertically without flapping. 4. Make three measurements of the time of fall for 1, 2 and 3 coffee filters. Record your measurements in Table 2. 5. Using your average time of fall find terminal velocities v1f, v2f, v3f for 1, 2 and 3 filters. 6. Using the found values estimate tterm and compare it to time of fall. 7. According to Eq. (5) ratio of terminal velocities for objects of the same area should be equal to square root of their mass ratio. Therefore

v2f v1f 2 1.41 and v3f v1f 3 1.73. Check your measurements. If your results are close to theoretical values you have experimentally confirmed that terminal velocity is proportional to square root of mass or, in other words, that the drag force is proportional to the square of velocity. 8. Using Eq. (1) and your values for the drag force and terminal velocity find the effective area A of the filters. Using expression A = r2 find effective radius r of the filters. If your value is close to the actual geometrical radius of the filter you have experimentally confirmed that the drag force is proportional to the area falling objects.
Data Sheet: Mass of a coffee filter m = ___________ kg Drag force for 1 filter D = mg = ___________ N

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Table 2. Time of fall measurement. Measurement 1 filter (seconds) #1 #2 #3 Average Tfa 2 filters (seconds) 3 filters (seconds)

Terminal velocity for 1 filter v1f = L/T1fa = ______________ m/s for 2 filter v2f = L/T2fa = ______________ m/s for 1 filter v3f = L/T3fa = ______________ m/s time to reach the terminal velocity tterm ~ v1f/g = _____________ s Ratios v2f/v1f = ________ Ratios v3f/v1f = ________ Percentage difference from Percentage difference from
2 1.41 ________

3 1.73 ________

Effective area A = ___________ m2, Effective radius of the filters ________ m Comprehension Questions: Work of electronic devices including cell phones, computers etc. rely on current of electrons through metallic wire interconnects. It is known that in the process of device operation electrons experience constant electric force and should move with constant acceleration similar to free falling objects. Observation, summarized as the so-called Ohms law, shows that it is not the case and electrons move with constant drift velocity. How could this happen?

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