CIVENG 2O04 Assignment 1 Due Date: January 26, 2022
Problem 1. The ideal gas law states
pV = nRT,
where p, V , and T are the pressure, volume and absolute temperature; n is the number of
moles of gas; and R is the the ideal gas constant. Consider a 1-gallon canister of gas at a
pressure of 1 atm. Answer the following questions:
1. How much energy would be needed to increase the pressure of the closed canister to
80 psi without changing its volume? Express your answer in SI units.
2. How much would the absolute temperature rise by? Express in percentage increase.
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CIVENG 2O04 Assignment 1 Due Date: January 26, 2022
Problem 2. An external pressure differential is often needed to drive fluid flow in narrow
tubes. Multiple experiments have been performed to investigate how fluid flow in narrow
tubes behave (Table 1). Here, the relevant parameters are the tube diameter (D), tube length
(L), velocity of the fluid flow (U ), fluid’s dynamic viscosity (µ), and the pressure difference
across the length of the tube (∆P ). Use dimensional analysis and the Buckingham π theorem
to answer the following questions:
1. Find the independent dimensionless parameters using the table method.
2. Create a scatter plot of the dimensionless parameters.
3. How will the pressure difference change if the tube diameter is doubled, given that all
other parameters remain the same?
Table 1: Data of ten different fluid flows in tubes of different sizes.
D [µm] L [m] U [mm/s] µ [Pa.s] ∆P [Pa]
200 0.3 3 0.0028 2016
234 0.25 3 0.0023 1008
372 0.33 1 0.0027 206
423 0.27 2.5 0.0025 301
412 0.23 1.5 0.0045 292
307 0.47 3.5 0.0037 2066
257 0.42 2 0.0032 1302
433 0.2 2 0.0021 143
328 0.35 4 0.0041 1707
437 0.3 3 0.0034 512
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CIVENG 2O04 Assignment 1 Due Date: January 26, 2022
Problem 3. A major transmission pathway of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-
19) is through droplets and aerosols produced by violent respiratory events such as sneezes
and coughs (Fig. 1). For the purpose of providing public health guidelines, we would like
to estimate the amount of time it takes for these droplets to settle from air to the ground.
The relevant parameters are the settling time (ts ), the initial height of the droplets (H),
gravitational acceleration (g), density of the droplets (ρd ), radius of the droplets (R), as well
as dynamic viscosity of the ambient air (µair ). Use dimensional analysis and the Buckingham
π theorem to answer the following questions:
1. Find the independent dimensionless parameters using the table method. Then, express
the settling time as a function of the other relevant parameters. Your solution should
match the physical intuition that the settling time scales linearly with the initial height.
2. How would the settling change if the diameter of the droplet is doubled?
3. Given the constant that emerges in the dimensional analysis to be equal to 4.5, find the
settling time of an 1 µm droplet created by an adult who is 1.7 m tall. The density of the
droplets are ρ = 1.5 g/mL, and the dynamic viscosity of air is µair = 1.81 × 10−5 Pa·s.
Figure 1: High-speed imaging of droplets produced by a sneeze.