Research on Aerodynamic characteristics of Lightweight Spheres Suspended in Vertical Airflow

Abstract

Experimenting to obtain data about the drag force is usually difficult and expensive. In this paper, an experiment is conducted using a hair dryer as a provision of a controllable airflow, and two ping pong balls as the object in an airflow to find out the factors that affect the stability of an object in an airflow by using the control variate method and use the turbulent jets theory to calculate the drag force. The result of this experiment is that when the balls have the same mass, as the wind speed increases, the vertical stability of the ball becomes better and the horizontal stability becomes better as well. When the wind speed is the same, as the mass of the ball increases, the vertical stability of the ball becomes better. The equations to calculate the drag force are correct and can simulate and calculate the result of the track of an object. The value of this experiment is that it provides an easy way to experiment with the drag force.