Investigating viscous damping using a webcam
Physics Education
2015-05-28 v1 Fluid Dynamics
Popular Physics
Abstract
We describe an experiment involving a mass oscillating in a viscous fluid and analyze viscous damping of harmonic motion. The mechanical oscillator is tracked using a simple webcam and an image processing algorithm records the position of the geometrical center as a function of time. Interesting information can be extracted from the displacement-time graphs, in particular for the underdamped case. For example, we use these oscillations to determine the viscosity of the fluid. Our mean value of 1.08 \pm 0.07 mPa s for distilled water is in good agreement with the accepted value at 20\circC. This experiment has been successfully employed in the freshman lab setting.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1106.1823,
title = {Investigating viscous damping using a webcam},
author = {Sohaib Shamim and Wasif Zia and Muhammad Sabieh Anwar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1106.1823},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
13 pages, 5 figures