Properties of Fluids

1
Properties of Fluids
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Fluids and Buoyancy

• What is a fluid?
• A fluid can be a liquid or a gas.
• Buoyancy is the ability of a fluid to exert an
  upward of force on an object immersed in it.
• If the buoyant force is equal to the objects
  weight, it will float.
• If the buoyant force is less than the weight, the
  object will sink.

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Archimedes Principle

• Archimedes was a Greek mathematician who lived in
  the 3rd century B.C.
• He found that the buoyant force on an object is
  equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the
  object.

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Density

• Would a steel block that was the same size as a
  wood block float in water?
• No, because they have different densities.
• If two objects are the same size, the heaviest
  one would be more dense.
• Density mass/volume
• D m/v
• The unit is grams per cubic centimeter or g/cm3.

5
Pascals Principle

• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French scientist
  who discovered a useful property of fluids.
• He found that pressure applied to a fluid is
  transmitted throughout the fluid.
• Pressure is force exerted per unit area.

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Bernoullis Principle

• Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) was a Swiss
  scientist who studied the properties of moving
  fluids such as water and air.
• He found that as velocity of a fluid increases,
  the pressure exerted by the fluid decreases.

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Viscosity

• Another property of fluids is the tendency to
  flow.
• A resistance to flow by a fluid is called
  viscosity.
• Water would have a low viscosity, syrup would
  have a high viscosity.