Brown University PHYS 0050/0070

Physics Department Measuring Fluid Viscosity by Ball Drop

Measuring Fluid Viscosity by Ball Drop

Abstract:

This lab is designed to measure fluid viscosity using a small ball drop device. The device
allows for viscosity measurement of fluid filled into a thin capillary. The technique is
particularly useful in characterizing biological fluids such as solutions of proteins, DNA,
and polymers frequently used in biomaterial applications.

Introduction:
The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to flow. As a fundamental property
of fluids, viscosity is observable in our everyday experiences from pouring water, paints,
cooking oil, honey, liquid detergents and shampoo, to mixing chemical solutions or
suspensions. Viscosity is also a crucial parameter in various industrial applications
involving transport, filtration, lubrication, drug formulation and delivery, just to name a
few.

Viscosity can be measured under many experimental settings, most of which require
creating a shear flow. We describe a miniature ball-drop device for measuring fluid
viscosity in sample volumes as small as ~100 l. The measurements can be made within
seconds and are readily repeatable.

Theory:
When a solid sphere is moving in a liquid, a viscous drag force will be exerted on the
sphere. According to Stokes law, the drag force is proportional to the viscosity of the
fluid , the radius r of the sphere, and the velocity (or speed) of the sphere as:

(1)

A steel ball is dropped into a fluid sample so that the gravitational force on the ball, mg,
is larger than the buoyant force . The net driving force F on the ball is:

(2)

where and are the densities of the ball and the liquid, respectively.

When F=f, the ball stops accelerating and falls with a constant speed , which is called
the terminal speed. The balance of forces is illustrated in Figure 1.

160623 1
Brown University PHYS 0050/0070
Physics Department Measuring Fluid Viscosity by Ball Drop

f Fb f
Fb
FL
v v

mg mg

Figure 1. Illustration of forces acting on a ball falling in a viscous liquid confined in a

capillary. Note in the tilt capillary a lift force FL is present at the steady state, as the ball
slides and partially rolls down while maintaining a constant distance from the capillary
wall.

Equating the right side of eq. 1 and the right side of eq. 2 yields the terminal speed:

(3)

From eq. 3 a final expression for viscosity is obtained as follows:

(4)
where d is the diameter of the ball, g is gravitational acceleration, and T is the time for the
ball to drop distance L with the recording started after it has reached the terminal
velocity.

Eq. 4 can be modified if the ball falls in a capillary tilted away from the vertical direction.
Following the analysis of tangential force components along an inclined plane (Figure 1),
the expression for viscosity is slightly modified, as follows

(5)
where is the angle between the capillary axis and the horizontal plane.

One immediate concern is how long it would take for the ball to actually reach its
terminal velocity after release. For typical ball size and mass of our experiment, this time

160623 2
Brown University PHYS 0050/0070
Physics Department Measuring Fluid Viscosity by Ball Drop
constant is negligibly small (~1 ms in water) and can be safely ignored.

The fluid viscosity obtained by applying the Stokes formula while ignoring all necessary
corrections is referred to as apparent viscosity. This lab shows how different that might
be from the true fluid viscosity and describes a proper procedure to obtain the latter.

Symbol Meaning Value and Unit

r radius of steel ball 0.2 or 0.254 mm
d diameter of the steel ball 0.4 or 0.508 mm
D inner diameter of capillary 1.3 mm
v (terminal) speed of ball drop cm/sec
m mass of steel ball Kg
g gravitational acceleration 9.8 m/sec2
a acceleration m/sec2
buoyant force Newton
F Net force (gravitational force-buoyant Newton
force)
lift force Newton
f drag force Newton
density of the steel ball 7.8 g/ml
density of test liquid g/ml
L distance of ball drop 8 cm
T time of ball drop sec
angle between capillary axis and the degree
horizontal plane
viscosity cP

Table 1. A list of symbols used. Note some commonly used units do not follow the SI
system.

Apparatus:

Materials required for the experiments (see Figure 2):

(1) Test liquids, such as water, a mixture of water and glycerol in 1:1 mass ratio,
and a aqueous polymer solution of polyethylene oxide at 0.5% in mass. A
small volume of a milliliter suffices for several experiments.
(2) Tiny stainless steel balls, which are commercially available as ball bearings in
various sizes with high precision. The diameter of the balls for this lab is
d=0.508 mm (or 0.0200 inch). The density of the steel is g/ml.
(3) Glass capillary tubes, which are commonly supplied for volume
measurements in biological laboratories and are purchased in cartons of 250,
from Fisher Scientific or VWR International. The ones used for this lab have
an inner diameter of 1.3 mm, each with a mark for taking 100 l liquids.

160623 3
Brown University PHYS 0050/0070
Physics Department Measuring Fluid Viscosity by Ball Drop
(4) a 5 or 10 ml plastic syringe and rubber tubing of approximately 2 mm inner
diameter, to be mounted to the syringe opening on one end and the capillary
on the other. This simple assembly acts as a capillary pipette.
(5) Clay, such as plumbers putty, for sealing the ends of the capillary.
(6) Home-made plastic racks with multiple grooves to conveniently hold the
capillaries (item B in Figure 2).
(7) Stop watch, and a small magnet to help manipulate the ball inside the
capillary.

Figure 2. Components for ball drop viscometry. A) stop watch. B) sample rack. C)
syringe and rubber tubing (for filling sample). D) liquid sample. E) small magnets. F)
glass capillaries. G) steel balls (inside plastic bag). H) clay.

Besides holding the capilleries in vertical position, the rack is also made to be laid on its
side so that the capillaries are tilt 60o from the vertical, as shown in Figure 3. This allows
for desirably slow drop of the ball in a sample of low viscosity, such as water.

160623 4
Brown University PHYS 0050/0070
Physics Department Measuring Fluid Viscosity by Ball Drop

Figure 3. The sample rack tilt 60o from the vertical. The tick marks are 1 cm apart, so
that when a steel ball falls inside the capillary, the experimenter can read the time it takes
to travel any number of centimeters.

Procedure:
(1) Connect one end of a capillary into an empty syringe via a 2 mm diameter
rubber tube.
(2) Insert the open end of the capillary into a test liquid and gently withdraw the
syringe pistol to apply suction until the capillary is filled with the test fluid.
(3) Seal the open end by plugging it with clay before detaching the other end from
the syringe mount.
(4) Pick up a steel ball by sticking it to a finger and drop it into the capillary tube.
This works better than using forceps. When dropped into the capillary, the
tiny ball is usually stuck at the meniscus.
(5) Gently slide the filled capillary into a slit on the rack.
(6) Use a magnet to move the steel ball below the meniscus and to within the
fluid. Then, release the ball by withdrawing the magnet horizontally away
from the capillary.
(7) Record the travel time T of the ball over a pre-marked distance L.
(8) Flip the capillary so that the ball is again at the top end of the capillary.
Repeat steps 6 and 7 for as many trials as desired.

Results and Analysis:

When the capillary is vertically held, you will find that the ball drops too fast in a fluid
like water (<1 sec) to measure its speed reliably using a hand held stopwatch, given
variable human reaction time on the order of 0.1 sec. A simple solution to slow down the
ball drop speed is to let it fall in a tilt capillary, by laying the rack to one side.

Students are required to perform measurements on water, a 1:1 mixture of glycerol and

160623 5
Brown University PHYS 0050/0070
Physics Department Measuring Fluid Viscosity by Ball Drop
water. They are asked to average five or more measurements for each sample, which is
easily completed by a few upside down flips of the filled capillary.

time 1 time 2 time 3 time 4 time 5 ave time app vis std err
material
(s) (s) (s) (s) (s) (s) (cP) (cP)
water 2.31 2.27 2.32 2.34 2.30 2.31 13.8 0.1
50% glycerol 10.97 10.41 10.65 11.1 10.68 10.76 64.3 0.7

Table 2. Measurements of ball drop speed in water and 50% glycerol, both performed
with the capillaries tilt 60o from the vertical ( =30o). Apparent viscosity (app vis) is
calculated using equation (5). The times recorded were for drops over a distance of 8.0
cm in a vertical capillary. The actual viscosity of water is 0.95 cP at 22oC, which is the
approximate lab temperature.

According the equation 5,

where is the SI unit of pressure. Therefore, based on the average time

listed in Table 2, the calculated apparent viscosity values for water and 50% glycerol are
13.8 and 64.3 , respectively. Note the more commonly used unit for
viscosity is centipoise (cP). In fact, 1cP= .

The greatest source of error for calculating viscosity from the ball drop experiment is the
nave application of Stokes formula without taking into account the confinement of the
ball in a thin capillary. The necessary correction depends on the size of the ball relative to
the inner diameter of the capillary. Due to the linear nature of the Stokes flow, however,
the reduction factor in the ball drop velocity does not vary much with the viscosity of the
test fluid. Therefore, one can obtain the viscosity of a test fluid (50% glycerol) by the
ratio of its apparent viscosity to the apparent viscosity of water, multiplied by the known
viscosity of water, which is 0.95 cP at 22oC. Thus the data listed on the table above yield
4.43 cp for 50% glycerol. This value agrees reasonably well with a separate measurement
using a commercial Cannon-Fenske viscometer, which yields 4.86 cP. Students ought to
briefly discuss factors that may cause errors to their obtained results.

Conclusion:
The ball drop viscosity measurement described in this report is convenient, reliable and
practically useful. It requires no computer interface, nor any electric instrument other
than a stopwatch. The technique may yield viscosity values in the error range of 5-10%,
dependent on how meticulous the experimenter is, how many standard samples are
measured for calibration, and how many repeated measurements are made on a sample of
interest. If performed with care, the technique is reliable for practical applications.

160623 6
Brown University PHYS 0050/0070
Physics Department Measuring Fluid Viscosity by Ball Drop

References:
Measurements of fluid viscosity using a miniature ball drop device, by J. X. Tang,
REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS, vol 87, page 054301 (2016).

160623 7