Drag Coefficient out by a factor of 10, can anyone help?

AI Thread Summary
The discussion revolves around calculating the drag coefficient for a sphere in a wind tunnel experiment, where the expected value is around 0.5. The user measured a drag force of 0.68N at a wind speed of 7.8m/s and a sphere radius of 0.0371m, leading to an unexpectedly high drag coefficient of 5.039. Other participants suggest verifying the accuracy of the drag force measurement and checking the units used in the wind tunnel readings. One contributor calculated a different drag coefficient of 4.293, indicating potential rounding differences. The user seeks assistance in identifying possible errors in their calculations or measurements.
Euan2007
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Drag Coefficient out by a factor of 10, can anyone help??

Im doing an experiment on the drag of a sphere and am trying to work out the drag coefficient. From looking at data online this should be around 0.5 (its a smooth sphere). Using a wind tunnel I measured the drag for various sizes of spheres and wind speeds. An example of one of my results is

Drag - 0.68N
Wind Speed - 7.8m/s
Radius of Sphere - 0.0371m

Then, using the formula

Drag Coefficent = (2 x Drag) / Area x Wind Speed^2 x Density of Air

Having measured the room temperature to be 22 degrees celcius I took the density of air to be 1.204kg/m^3 and the projected frontal area was calculated using pi x r^2

But this equals 5.039! so could anyone point out where I am going wrong?? I am 90% sure all of my values are correct. Thanks in advance for any help :)
 
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Are you absolutely sure about the calculated drag force? Your equation is correct, although I get 4.293 when I plug your data into it (probably rounding differences). I'm not terribly familiar with wind tunnels, but try checking the units of the readings that you're getting from it.
 
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