The Stoke's Law states that when a spherical object of radius is falling at velocity in a fluid, the resistance force acting on the sphere is given by where is the coefficient of viscosity of the fluid. The following table shows the coefficients of viscosity of various fluids at . A spherical ball of radius 0.05 m and mass 0.2 kg is released from rest in a huge container filled with corn syrup at . It can be shown that as the ball falls through the corn syrup, the velocity ms^{-1} at time seconds after release satisfies the differential equation where is the acceleration due to gravity and kg is the mass of the ball.
- (i)
Find in terms of .
- (ii)
State the velocity of the ball after a long time, assuming that it does not reach the bottom of the container.
- (iii)
The distance travelled by the ball from the point it was released is denoted by m.
Using the fact that , find the distance covered by the ball after 30 seconds.
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Worked solution
3(i)
1. Substitute the given values of $\eta$, $R$, $m$, and $g$ into the differential equation.
From the table, the coefficient of viscosity for corn syrup is .
Substituting the values , , and :
The differential equation becomes:
2. Separate the variables $v$ and $t$, then integrate both sides.
3. Use the initial condition to find the constant of integration.
Since the ball is released from rest, when .
Substituting back:
4. Rearrange the equation to make $v$ the subject.
Multiply by :
3(ii)
1. Evaluate the velocity as $t \to \infty$ by setting the rate of change to zero (or by taking the limit of $v(t)$ from part (i)).
As , the velocity approaches a constant value (terminal velocity), so .
3(iii)
1. Concisely retrieve the velocity function $v(t)$ obtained from solving the differential equation in part (i).
From part (i), the constant .
Solving the differential equation with the initial condition gives:
2. Set up the definite integral to find the distance covered in 30 seconds using $v = \frac{dx}{dt}$.
Since and the ball is released from rest, the distance covered is the integral of velocity with respect to time:
3. Evaluate the definite integral to find the distance.
Integrating analytically (or evaluating directly using a graphing calculator):
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