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Abraham J Mar Biol Oceanogr 2014, 3:2
Journal of Marine
http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2324-8661.1000126
they fall through the water and consequently, the measured ocean
Experimental Verification temperatures. For the application of climate monitoring, ocean heat
content is by far the largest thermal reservoir and uncertainty of
of Drag Forces on Spherical ocean measurements are the largest climate monitoring uncertainty.
Objects Entering Water Since the second half of the 20th century, millions of XBT devices
have been dropped into ocean waters from various ocean-going
John Gorman1, John Abraham2*, Dillon Schwalbach2, Thomas vessels. In some cases, the drops are part of carefully controlled
Shepard2, John Stark2 and Franco Reseghetti3
experiments where the XBT probes are released from specified heights
above the ocean (2-3 meters). On the other hand, in other cases, the
XBTs are dropped from commercial shipping vessels from heights
Abstract
Objects which pass from gas regions to liquid regions experience
that may be ~30 meters. As a consequence, the impact velocity of the
elevated impact forces associated with the acceleration of device at the water surface differs widely depending on the specific
the surrounding liquid. In order to investigate these forces, nature of the experiment.
complementary experiments and simulations were performed on a
For the XBT device, depth is not measured directly, rather it
sphere that traveled from air to water with an impact velocity of 2
m/s. It was found that the two methods gave results that were in is inferred from experimentally obtained correlations of time and
very good agreement. In particular, the depth vs. time trajectory depth. The correlating equations generally take the form shown in
of the sphere closely matched. A fitted polynomial allowed the Equation (1).
entry region acceleration to be extracted. The two independent
accelerations were found to be in excellent agreement. A simple Depth = at2 + bt + c (1)
momentum analysis allowed extraction of drag coefficients and they The coefficients in Equation (1) characterize the rate of descent.
too were in very close agreement. The values of the drag coefficient
They are specific to the type of probe, including its size and weight. A
also agree with prior studies. Finally, a comparison of the width
of the splash region provided further validation of the methods.
detailed discussion of fall rate equations is provided in the literature
Taken together, the excellent agreement lends strong support to and information about the coefficients is given in [1-19]. A historical
the numerical methods which were employed. Entry-region drag review of oceanographic measurement systems with particular
coefficients enable users to predict the trajectory of devices in other emphasis on the XBT device is provided in the literature [13]. In
applications. Those applications are not limited to the object size the literature cited here, discussions on both depth bias and fall rate
and impact velocity that were studied here. equations can be found.
Keywords There are some obvious issues with the fall rate equation because
Climate change; Ocean heating; Drag forces; Entry forces; Water it cannot be used to account for the specific details of the launch. For
entry; Ocean temperatures; Climate monitoring instance, launch height and water temperature, which are known to
affect fall rate, are not accounted for explicitly. As a result, fall rate
Introduction equations obtained from carefully controlled drops of ~2 m in warm
tropical waters are used for much higher drop heights in all water
Many engineering, scientific, military, and commercial enterprises temperatures. The differences in operating conditions can lead to
involve the transfer of solid objects from gaseous to liquid regions. depth errors that are a significant uncertainty in closing the Earths
Some examples include the release of oceanographic measurement energy balance [13].
devices into water, missiles or torpedoes which enter the water, the
impact of boat hulls on water surfaces, and others. Another drawback with the form of Equation (1) is that is
preordains a constant acceleration which is not a priori expected,
During the penetration of the liquid surface, large impact forces particularly in the entry region.
are realized on the solid object. The genesis of the forces is associated
with the transfer of momentum from the solid object to the liquid and While the ultimate motivation for this study is the development
the subsequent acceleration of liquid in front of the object. There may of a numerical methodology which can be employed for XBT devices,
also be extra drag forces associated with the formation of a gas cavity the shape studied here is more simple. The sphere was chosen for the
behind the projectile. present geometry because it has the most extensive literature available.
The studies date back more than 100 years and only an abbreviated
It is important to quantify these impact forces because they greatly history is discussed here. Interested readers are referred to [19] which
affect the trajectory of the solid object after impact. For instance, for more fully explores the rich literature on the sphere-entry problem.
oceanographic measurement devices, like the eXpendable Bathy
Thermograph (XBT), the impact forces can affect the rate at which An early paper that explored impact forces was written by
Richardson EG (1948) [20] which determined pressure variations
on surfaces as they impacted a water body. Three contemporary
*Corresponding author: John Abraham, School of Engineering, University of
studies [21-23] developed analytical methods to predict the forces on
St. Thomas, 2115 summit Ave, St. Paul, MN 55105-1079, USA, Tel: 651-962-
5766; Fax: 651-962-6419; E-mail: jpabraham@stthomas.edu objects during the early stages of impact by balancing the momentum
transferred between the moving object and the stationary fluid.
Received: November 11, 2013 Accepted: January 24, 2014 Published:
February 05, 2014
All articles published in Journal of Marine Biology & Oceanography are the property of SciTechnol, and is protected by
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Citation: Gorman J, Abraham J, Schwalbach D, Shepard T, Stark J, et al.,(2014) Experimental Verification of Drag Forces on Spherical Objects Entering Water.
J Mar Biol Oceanogr 3:2.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2324-8661.1000126
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2324-8661.1000126
Figure 1: Solution domain including air and water regions and solid sphere moving vertically downwards, reproduced from [20].
sphere to drop instantaneously and without any externally induced Table 1: A summary of the measured sphere properties.
forces. The camera was set to capture at a rate of 5,400 frames per Mass Diameter
Ps
second (fps) and a resolution of 1024 1024 pixels using the software g g (95% CI) Mm mm (95% CI)
Photron FASTCAM Viewer, version 3.0. Pw
33.428 0.0005 39.815 0.1012 1.013
The sphere used in the experimental portion of the study was
made to match the weight and diameter of the sphere used in the
Paper A wt. sandpaper. After sanding, the ball was rinsed using tap
simulation. A celluloid sphere (ping pong ball, Prince #PB-TG6) had
water and dried. A final coat of WX2100 was applied to the entire
an 11.1 mm hole drilled into it which was then filled with molten
sphere. Careful surface preparation provided a very smooth surface
paraffin (McMaster-Carr #1085K91). The wax was allowed to
so that surface roughness was expected to be negligible. Similarly, the
harden and a 7.94 mm hole was drilled down to the center of the
simulations were carried out with a smooth-surface model. Once the
sphere. A 9.525 0.127 mm diameter 101-1020 carbon steel sphere
final coat had dried, the sphere was handled using nitrile gloves and
(McMaster-Carr #96455K54) was press-fit into the sphere center and
stored in a closed container. The sphere properties are summarized
the remaining void was filled with molten paraffin wax. The sphere
in Table 1.
surface was washed thoroughly and then coated with WX2100, a
hydrophobic surface coating. After drying for at least 24 hours, The mass of each sphere was measured using a Mettler-Toledo
flaws in the coating were removed using 3M 413Q 400 Wetordry MS303S digital scale. The diameter of each sphere was measured
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2324-8661.1000126
Vacuum Line
Funnel
Sphere
Camera
Light Source Figure 5: Somparison of simulated and experimental sphere depths.
Water Tank
specific gravity were made using a Chase hydrometer. A Cannon
#50 capillary viscometer was used to measure the viscosity of the
water. Surface tension was measured using a CSC-DuNuoy 70535
Surface Tensiometer. Finally, A Fluke 52II thermometer and Type
Figure 2: Schematic of the experimental setup.
K thermocouples measured water temperature in the tank at a depth
of 40 mm. The results from these measurements are summarized in
Table 2.
During each experimental run the sphere was loaded into the
funnel with the filled hole oriented such that it would be on the
trailing end during impact. The funnel was dried between runs to
ensure that no residual water would be transferred to the ball prior
the run. The sphere was dropped from a height of 222 mm measured
from the bottom of the sphere to the surface of the water.
The sphere position vs. time data was obtained by an algorithm
developed in MATLAB which would read the series of images of the
sphere as it fell. The specific MATLAB commands used were im2bw
which converted a grayscale image into a binary image based on an
Figure 3: Sequential photographs of the sphere prior to and during impact. user-defined intensity threshold and regionprops (Extrema) which
identifies objects in the binary image and gathers position information
regarding the edges of the object. As the sphere approached the water
interface from above the bottom of the sphere became obscured by
the water interface for roughly 7 frames (Figure 4a). Thus the position
of the top of the sphere was used in determining its velocity at impact.
Upon impact, the bottom of the sphere was clearly seen emerging
below the air-water interface in Figures 4b and 4c. The position of
the bottom of the sphere upon impact was used in determining the
depth vs. time data in the experimental portion of this study as it was
not distorted by interference of splashing water. The bottom position
was shown to reliably track with the top position of the sphere until
Figure 4: Sequential photographs of sphere impacting water surface. the splash obscured the top position. It is noted that upon entering
the water the sphere appears magnified so a different pixel/mm
Table 2: A summary of the measured water properties. scaling ratio was used for the air and water. For data analysis the zero
Temperature Specific gravity Viscosity Surface Tension position and zero time correspond to the undisturbed free surface of
C C (95% CI) (95% CI) mm2/s2 mm2/s2 (95% CI) dyne/cm dyne/cm (95% CI) the water and the moment of impact.
22.6 0.050 0.998 0.001 1.121 0.0121 71.5 0.480
A total of six runs were conducted in order to determine
using a Mitutoyo caliper, model #CD-6CSX. A total of six diameter the experimental repeatability which played the largest factor in
measurements were taken at a position offset by 45 relative to all determining experimental uncertainties as the relative uncertainty
other measurements. in pixel location and time was negligible. The impact velocity was
measured as the average velocity within 10 mm of the air-water
Repeated measurements of the properties of the water were interface and determined to be 1.96 m/s 1%. The splash width
taken both before and after all experiments. Measurements on water was determined experimentally from the images for the six trials
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2324-8661.1000126
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2324-8661.1000126
Conclusion
The present study focused on experimentally verifying a
numerical method that was set forth in a prior paper. Both the
numerical and experimental investigations were performed with
all relevant parameters equal (mass, impact velocity, fluids, sphere
size, etc.). The studies were carried out until the top of the sphere
was coincident with the surface of the undisturbed water. High-speed
camera images allowed virtual continuous tracking of the sphere at all
instances in time. This data was used to obtain instantaneous velocity
and acceleration. From a momentum balance, the drag forces and
drag coefficients were found.
Figure 7: Photograph of splash when the sphere top is coincident with the Similarly, from the simulations, the timewise variations of
undisturbed liquid surface. position, velocity, acceleration and force were found. A comparison
of the two independent results showed that the predictions of the
spheres were in very close agreement. It was also found that the entry-
averaged drag coefficients were in excellent agreement. They also
agreed with prior publications which were validated by experiments
carried out by other researchers.
A second comparison was made on the fluid dynamic flow
patterns. In particular, the splash width was defined as the width
of the cavity region at the top of the sphere when the sphere top is
coincident with the undisturbed water. It was found that the simulated
and experimental splash widths agreed to approximately 6 %.
From these studies, it is possible to determine the fall-rate
characteristics of spheres with other sizes and impact velocities
during their penetration into a liquid water surface.
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Minneapolis, USA
2
School of Engineering, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, USA
3
ENEA, UTMAR-OSS, Forte S. Teresa, Italy