Fluid Friction and Surface Area: Detailed Insights

In this article, we will see about Fluid friction and surface area in detail.

Walking on any surface should be a little rough, meaning it should have some friction. Take another example, we can write on any notebook or page. The reason behind this is friction.

Many work or things happen because of one term known as Friction. Just think it out that if any surface is pure finished means not a little bit rough, then can we walk on this surface?

Walking on any surface should be a little rough, meaning it should have some friction. Take another example, we can write on any notebook or page. The reason behind this is friction.

Now, this type of friction is present in all types of matter and all types of phases of matter like friction in solid, Friction in liquid, and friction in gas. It is present in all phases of matter because particles have the same nature in any phaseregarding friction. Just like that, Friction plays a major role in Fluid also.

If we talk about any fluid, we can divide fluid into many layers. And those layers moving relatively witheachother produces friction between eachother. It is known as fluid friction. The physical term of fluid responsible for friction is viscosity.

The viscosity of any fluid can be defined easily as the thickness of any fluid like water, as lower thickness means it has a lower viscosity and it can move easily. And oil has a higher thickness and so it has a higher viscosity and cannot move easily.

Examples of fluid friction are:

There are so many examples on fluid friction in nature.

We can observe that any dust particles can move faster on the upper layer of liquid then they can move on the lower layer of the fluid.

Fluid friction and surface area
Fluid friction Credit Wikipedia

We have to give much force to swim in the water because friction is there.

Now we will discuss the relation of fluid friction and surface area of the different body types.

We have to design the front part of the vehicle as an aerodynamic shape to reduce the air resistance or friction to increase the vehicle’s performance.

Does the fluid friction affected by surface area

Fluid Friction and surface area is extensively discussed as below,

The fluid friction does not affect by surface area. It will remain same if you vary the contact surface area.

Factors affecting the value of friction are:

  • 1. Viscosity of fluid
  • 2. Shape of the body
  • 3. Temperature of the body
  • 4. Pressure on the body.

Many factors exist, but the fluid friction and surface area has no direct relation.. If the surface area for fluid friction is small or large, then the same fluid friction for all other properties remains the same.

Why is fluid friction not affected by surface area?

If the object’s mass is the same, then fluid friction and surface area has not dependency on each other.

Newton’s third law of motion: when there is an action, there is always a same & opposite reaction. So with an increase in friction, the object’s weight must be increased. It is impossible, so Fluid friction is not affected by surface area.

Assume that if the surface area is increased, a frictional force increases. It means normal force at the surface area is also increased as per the formula of Friction.

In other words, if the mass of all objects is the same, then as per the energy equation, there is no energy loss means no energy wasted then the force required to move all objects will be the same. It means Friction force is the same for different objects with different surface areas. So Fluid friction is not affected by surface area.

Now Fluid has no fixed shape, so surface area is changed, but the total volume of the fluid is not changed such overall fluid friction is not affected.

Does surface area and surface type affect the amount of friction?

As we know, that Friction is produced because of the roughness of the surface,

The surface area does not affect the amount of friction, but the surface type affects the amount of friction.

If the roughness of the surface is more, the amount of friction is large, and if the roughness of the surface is less than, the amount of friction is small.

fluid friction and surface area
Friction Credit Wikipedia

Now withthe Ice object, there is a surface with low friction, and the puck moves so easily, and we can see sometimes it will slide without any effort because there is very less friction on ice.

And now, if any surface with the best polished still some effort is needed to move any object on that because it is not totally without friction.

Why is fluid friction not affected by the surface area of a solid?

Fluid friction and surface area can be correlated with the following means

Fluid friction is not affected by the surface area of a solid but by the condition that the mass of the solid should remain the same.

As per the density of a material, it remains the same, and density is the ratio of the body’s mass to the volume of the body; then, the volume should remain the same with the same mass of the body.

So volume must not be changed with the changes in surface area of the body. If it is satisfied, fluid friction and surface area has no variation because of each other in the solid.

Why is fluid friction not affected by the surface area of the earth?

The fluid means the state of substance is gases or liquid.

As we discussed earlier, fluid friction is not affected by the surface area of a solid; for the same reason, we can say that fluid friction is not affected by the earth’s surface area.

So Friction is affected by types of surface. The fluid friction and surface area are also possess same dependency as discussed above topic.

And as we see above, the amount of friction is not affected by surface area because the mass of the body will remain the same.

Also, please click to know about Fluid Friction and Sliding Friction.

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