Viscosity?

Question

What are some of the scientific uses of viscosity?

God Bless,
Elisha

Answer 1

Blood. If its too thick then it can clot and cause a heart attack or stroke, or if its too thin can bleed from a small cut for hours. Doctors have to know the viscosity of your blood when performing operations.

Answer 2

Viscosity is a property of a fluid substance, like color, smell, or density. It is the resistance of a fluid to flow under force. It is important to know the force required to make a fluid flow in a pipe, for example. Let's pretend you are designing the distrubution system of water from a water plant for a town. Given the average demand of water for the town for any given time, and you know the viscosity of water (it's 1 centipoise), what will be the flow? What pressure will the pipes be under? What size of pipes will be needed? Can the pipe withstand the pressure? Will the water flow smoothly? All these are influenced by the viscosity of water. It gets even more complicated in designing chemical plants, where a lot of different fluids other than water,with different viscosities, have to be considered.