Measurement of friction drag force on discontinuous glass and polymer fibers

This article describes the development of a piezoelectric force transducer specially designed to measure the fluctuating drag force experienced by a discontinuous micro fiber immersed in a turbulent airflow. The newly designed measurement tool possesses a fundamental frequency of approximately 940 Hz with a resolution of 10 −4 N . A correlation for the friction drag coefficient as a function of the Reynolds number was found. This equation is of similar form but with differing slope and intercept to that previously published for continuous fibers. Although the driving frequency of the flow system was underestimated, resulting in limited utility of the instrument to the fine scale forces imposed on micro fibers, the sensor provided a necessary measurement of average drag forces. It may also be a useful tool for measuring small forces with lower frequency excitation than observed among the micro fibers exposed to a turbulent air stream. This study represents a first attempt at measuring dynamic drag forces on discontinuous micro fibers.