Fluid Pressure
The term fluid pressure is coined as, the measurement of the force per unit area of a given surface of a closed container. It is a branch of physics that helps to study the properties of fluid under various conditions of force.
Gauge Pressure
Pressure is the physical force acting per unit area on a body; the applied force is perpendicular to the surface of the object per unit area. The air around us at sea level exerts a pressure (atmospheric pressure) of about 14.7 psi but this doesn’t seem to bother anyone as the bodily fluids are constantly pushing outwards with the same force but if one swims down into the ocean a few feet below the surface one can notice the difference, there is increased pressure on the eardrum, this is due to an increase in hydrostatic pressure.
At small scales, viscous drag becomes very important. To a paramecium (shown), a singlecelled animal that can propel itself through water with fine hairs on its body, swimming through water feels like swimming through honey would to you. We can model a paramecium as a sphere of diameter 50 μm, with a mass of 6.5 x 10-11 kg.
You can test the viscosity of a liquid by dropping a steel sphere into it and measuring the speed at which it sinks. For viscous fluids, the sphere will rapidly reach a terminal speed. At this terminal speed, the net force on the sphere is
A. Directed downward.
B. Zero.
C. Directed upward.
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