AE292 Measurement and analysis of fluid flows

Assignment 2
Total Marks : 60
Date 13/3/2022 Due Date: 29/3/2022 5pm (Submission offline)
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1. Consider a U-tube manometer filled with a liquid of density 𝜌; see figure 1. The cross-
sectional area of the limbs of the manometer is A (circular cross-section) and the
viscosity of the liquid is 𝜇. g is the acceleration due to gravity. Consider that a small
pressure difference is applied across the manometer limbs at t=0.

Figure 1

a) Obtain the equation of motion governing the displacement of manometer liquid.

Find out the natural frequency of oscillation. Neglect the effect of friction.
b) Next consider the friction at the wall due to viscosity. Assume that the frictional
drag for the motion of the manometer liquid is twice that for a laminar viscous flow
(fully developed) of the same liquid through a pipe of cross-sectional area A and
length L. Obtain the governing equation of the manometer liquid including drag
force.
c) Suppose you want to achieve a critical damping ratio of 0.7. What should be the
relation between the parameters of the problem corresponding to this condition?
Express area A as the function of remaining parameters.
d) Suppose now that the U-tube manometer is used to measure sinusoidally varying
8𝑔
pressure with frequency √ 𝐿 . Find out the error in the measurement of the amplitude

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 of pressure and the phase difference between the measured and imposed pressure
variation.
-10 Marks

2. A Mercury-in-glass thermometer initially at 25°𝐶 is suddenly immersed into a liquid

that is maintained at 100°𝐶. After time interval of 2.0s, the thermometer reads 76°𝐶.
Assuming a first-order system, estimate the time constant of the thermometer.
- 4 Marks

3. A thermocouple with the time constant of 0.05s is considered to behave as a first-order

system. Over what frequency range can the thermocouple measure dynamic
temperature fluctuations (assumed to be harmonic) with an error less than 5%?
- 4 Marks

4.
a) Suppose you want to acquire an analogue signal which has maximum frequency of 30
kHz. What sampling frequency would you choose?
b) Suppose the discrete frequencies should have a resolution of ± 0.05𝐻𝑧. What should
be the sampling period (duration) to achieve this?
c) Suppose you are using a 12-bit data acquisition system and the smallest voltage you
want to resolve is 1mV. What should be the range of voltage that needs to be set to
achieve this?
- 6 Marks

5. Consider a standard Pitot-static tube mounted inside a wind tunnel for measurement of
wind speed of about 10m/s. The pressure difference across the total and static ports is
measured using a reservoir manometer. The diameter of the reservoir is 100mm and
that of the other limb is 4mm. Due to the mounting error, the Pitot-static tube is inclined
to the flow direction at an angle of 8°. The height of the manometric liquid (with respect
to the equilibrium position) is measured with a scale which has a least count of 0.1mm.
The density of air is calculated based on separate temperature and pressure
measurements which have an accuracy of ±0.1% and ±0.25% respectively. The
density of manometric fluid is chosen from a property table.
a) Discuss the various sources of uncertainty in this measurement.
b) Classify them as bias and precision uncertainties.
c) Estimate the uncertainty in the determination of wind velocity using the principle
of propagation of uncertainty.
Assume that all the uncertainties correspond to a confidence level of 95%.
- 6 Marks

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6. From a sample of 150 marbles having mean diameter of 10 mm and a standard deviation
of ±3.4 mm, how many marbles would you expect to find in the range of 10 to 15 mm?
- 4 Marks

7. Spacer blocks are manufactured in quantity to a nominal dimension of 1.25 mm. A

sample of 12 blocks was selected and the following measurements were made.

1.28 1.32 1.29 1.23

1.26 1.26 1.20 1.29
1.24 1.23 1.26 1.22

Using the Student's t-test determine the upper and lower tolerance values within which
the population mean may be expected to fall with a significance level of 10%.
- 4 Marks

8. A quality control engineer wants to determine if the diameters of ball bearings produced
by a machine are normally distributed. From a random sample of 300 bearings, he
determines that the sample mean is 10.00 mm with a sample standard deviation of
±0.10 mm. Moreover, he obtains the following frequency distribution for the
diameters.

Diameter, mm Observed frequency

Under 9.80 8
9.80 – under 9.90 42
9.90 – under 10.00 107
10.00 – under 10.10 97
10.10 – under 10.20 38
10.20 and over 8

Are the bearing diameters normally distributed at the 5% significance level?

- 4 Marks

9. A system is calibrated statistically. The accompanying table lists the results.

Input Output (Increasing Input) Output (Decreasing Input)

0.12 1.6 2.2
0.17 2.7 2.3
0.27 3.7 3.2
0.32 3.9 4.2
0.38 4.3 4.8
0.46 5.6 5.2
0.53 6.7 6.5
0.64 7.4 7.4

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 a) Plot output versus input.
b) Calculate the best straight-line fit, first for the increasing output, then for the
decreasing output and finally for the combined data.
c) What is the maximum deviation in each case?
d) If it is assumed that zero input should yield zero output, what is the zero offset
(bias) that should be assigned?
e) Comment on the presence of hysteresis in the measurement system.
- 8 Marks

10. You have to carry out an experiment on a wing model. The wing has to be tested for
dynamic stall measurements which requires the wing to be oscillated symmetrically as
well as asymmetrically about some reference. You are provided with a NI DAQ USB-
6363, motor RS 440-470 and a MSD 415 Micro stepping driver. Write a VI that has the
following features.
a) Has control to select microsteps/degrees and degrees to move in symmetrical
oscillation mode. Once the user inputs the above information the motor should
start oscillating about the current position according to input.
b) In asymmetrical oscillation mode the user should be able to input 2 values (1
up-sweep and 1 down-sweep angle) of degrees and the motor should start
oscillating about the current position according to input.
c) Has a switch to select between the symmetric and asymmetric mode.
d) The code should terminate automatically when some fault occurs in code
execution or when the user wants.
Provide a connection diagram for the motor, driver and the DAQ system.
- 10 Marks