A Study On Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics

Vivian Chen

There are two ingredients inside a lava lamp: a watery liquid, and a waxy compound that collects at the bottom. Turn on the light bulb in the lamps base, and the waxy compound slowly comes to life, wiggling its way to the top. For any lava lamp, there are two requirements for the ingredients: Close in density Insoluble in one another

FUN FACT
How dangerous is a lava lamp? Probably not much, unless used improperly. Cases have been reported of people heating lava lamps on their stoves to speed up the time it takes for a lava lamp to be hot enough to start moving. As can be expected, steam would build up inside and the lava lamp exploded, in one case killing a 24 year old with a shard of the flying glass. WHOOPS!

Whether something sinks or rises in water is determined by its density. If something is denser than the surrounding it will sink. If something is less dense, it will rise and float. The trick is that the waxy compound has almost exactly the same density as the water inside the lamp; this density changes with temperature. When the wax cools, it is slightly denser than the water and it sinks. When it is warm, it gets less dense, and it risesand the process repeats itself. This is an example of convection heat transfer.

Substance Bubble Movement in Different Temperature Environments

Substance bubbles move as a result of the combined force of gravity and the buoyancy force (from Archimedes Principle).

CONTAINER
Temperature T2

Substance Drop 1

Substance Drop 2 Height H Surrounding Water Temperature T0 Temperature T1

Figure 1: Simplified diagram

PURPOSE: To show and prove how a lava lamp works!

Firstly, we need to find out what this lava is made out of. But there is a problemthese ingredients are TOP

SECRET. So the closest we can get to is a mixture of wax and dry cleaning fluid. Close enough.

To show that the blob travels up and down, we need to show that the density of the blobs substance varies from a greater density to a lower density (than the density of water) and back. We could go the easy way using Density = Mass/Volume, but that method is actually hard, because the differences of volume are so small its almost impossible to detect precisely with our eyes.

Sowe can derive an equation to make this task easier:

The total force applied to the substance drops (masses) is given by

where V is the volume of the substance drops, g is gravity, densities of the substance bubbles and water at temperature T.

and

are the

For the first-order approximation, when drop 1 leaves one boundary, the temperature will generally stay the same until it touches the other boundary. So, we have:

or

for substance drop 1 , similarly, we could find substance drop 2:

or

The total time taken to travel from one boundary to the other boundary is given by (using )

Finally, we can derive an equation that gets us the density of the substance:

It is apparent that time t only depends on the containers height H, and density difference among the substance drops. It is independent of the size of the blobs.

Materials: Glass Jar, Boiled water, thermometer, ruler, candle wax, dry cleaning fluid, a stick to hold the wax at the bottom, timer THE BASIC PROCEDURE WE USED 1. Heat up the wax and mix it in with the dry cleaning fluid while it is still hot to create the lava. Mold a ball out of it. 2. Fill the glass jar up to a height that you will use for the rest of the experiment, with slightly cooled down boiled water 3. Put the wax ball in the water, use the stick to push it down to the bottom 4. Start the timer the same time you release the ball of wax, and stop it when it surfaces. If the ball naturally sinks, time how long it takes to do so 5. Record while testing various temperatures (dont test above 80 degrees! The wax will start melting quickly.) So, after plugging in all the numbers

Temperature Density_water C) 11 1 25 40 60 70 0.996 0.992 0.983 0.978

Height (cm) 12 12 12 12 12

Direction* -1 -1 1 1 1

Time (sec) 3.6 5 4 3.3 3

Density_Wax + Dry Cleaning Fluid 1.009 1 0.984 0.972 0.964

Temperature vs. Density

1.015 1.01 1.005 1 0.995 Density 0.99 0.985 0.98 0.975 0.97 0.965 0.96 0 20 40 Temperature C ) 60 80 70, 0.964 70, 0.978 Density_Wax+ Dry Cleaning Fluid Density_water

CONCLUSION The dotted line on the graph shows at what temperature the lava will start to rise in a lava lamp, which is 30 degrees Celsius. We know this is reasonable data because at colder temperatures, the wax balls density is greater than water, so it stays at the bottom before it is heated. It is not just randomly floating on top. As it gets hotter, the ball rises.

Possible Errors
Temperature uniformity for both wax and water Micro-bubbles on the surface of the wax Timer error Drag and viscosity

FUN FACT Misconceptions The lava lamp got its name due to the company that bought the American rights to the invention, Lava Lite, not from its resemblance to lava.