This document if the analysis of my working plan during this investigate project. It looks at the advantages and disadvantages of my working plan and discusses what I would do differently if I was to create a working plan again.
At the beginning of my audit and action plan. I focused on the research that I had to partake in to
learn about the background on viscosity. I used the internet and my workbook in order to gain
knowledge on this subject including the definition which stated that viscosity was the resistance of a
fluid to flow. I learnt that viscosity had two types which were static viscosity which is viscosity of a
stationary fluid and dynamic viscosity which is viscosity of a moving fluid. I also researched about
factors that affected viscosity and the way viscosity changes due to the state of matter of the fluid
This stage was essential in understanding why I am conducting this experiment and learning the
basic of viscosity before proceeding with the working plan. I broke my research down into
researching about viscosity first and then researching about what factors lead to viscosity increasing.
This stage was conducted to deeper my knowledge of viscosity and to also allow me to start to think
about what I wanted the aim of my investigation to be, this was an essential element in deciding to
conduct the experiment on the effects of dilution on viscosity. Using the internet and my workbook,
I gained a lot of knowledge on 5 mechanisms that can lead to the viscosity of a substance increasing.
These 5 mechanisms were; number of particles present, attractive forces between the molecules,
long polymer molecules and entanglement, emulsions and minerals and gum. I then directed my
research towards learning about the actual substance I was going to be using. I chose ketchup. I
conducted background research into tomato ketchup to gain further knowledge on the chemistry of
this substance including its molecular structure a formula and understand how this substance acts as
a fluid. Due to conducting research, I found that tomato ketchup was known as a non-Newtonian
fluid. I did further research into this subject and discovered that a non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid that
does not follow Newton's law of viscosity, i.e. constant viscosity independent of stress. Viscosity can
change when under force to either more liquid or more solid. This was interesting to me as this
substance did not follow the law of viscosity, so it made a suitable candidate for further research. I
then conducted further research of the factors that affect viscosity. One factor that increased
viscosity was the level of dilution of the substance. I conducted online research into dilution and
discovered that increasing the dilution of a substance will increase the viscosity. I would change my
working plan here as I did not include this as one of my steps in my audit and action plan even
though this was an essential step. This became the aim of my investigation for my experiment. To
investigate the effect of dilution on viscosity. In order to create a method for my own experiment. I
needed to conduct background research on other people's experiments into viscosity of fluids to
analyse the method that they used. I found four predominant investigations but none of them were
investigations into the effect of dilution of viscosity so even though I used one method as a basis
method for my own, I had to change the investigation in order for it to cater to what I wanted to
research. This step allowed me to compare my prior ideas of the method I wanted to conduct with
previous methods. It allowed me to see faults in my own method and gather insight on how I should
conduct my practical. This step was very essential, and I believe I conducted it effectively even
though if I was to repeat my working plan, I would have researched more than 4 investigations and
would have gave myself more time to do this to gather more knowledge.
Using all the research that I had conducted, I planned out my aim, hypothesis, method and
equipment for the investigation. I decided on researching the effect of dilution on the viscosity of
tomato ketchup. My hypothesis stated that as the dilution increases, the viscosity will also increase.
This was formed from the background research that I had conducted. Using the methods of previous
investigations, I formed a method to cater to researching dilution and to cater conducting this
practical in the laboratory. I planned out my equipment, making sure that I had extra in case of error
or breakage. I planned these out beforehand to organise my experiment so that it can be conducted
with ease and so that my teacher can check it in case of fault in my method. I then wrote out my
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