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    Conservation of Energy Lab Report

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    Cuong Nguyen
    The purpose of this lab is to confirm the law of conservation of energy. After measuring the potential and kinetic energies at various positions of an oscillating mass attached on a spring, we add the values of these two kinds of energy up and see if the sum is the same at every positions

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    Conservation of Energy Lab Report

    Uploaded by

    Cuong Nguyen
    2K views5 pages
    The purpose of this lab is to confirm the law of conservation of energy. After measuring the potential and kinetic energies at various positions of an oscillating mass attached on a spring, we add the values of these two kinds of energy up and see if the sum is the same at every positions

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    © © All Rights Reserved

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    The purpose of this lab is to confirm the law of conservation of energy. After measuring the potential and kinetic energies at various positions of an oscillating mass attached on a spring, we add the values of these two kinds of energy up and see if the sum is the same at every positions

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    2K views5 pages

    Conservation of Energy Lab Report

    Uploaded by

    Cuong Nguyen
    The purpose of this lab is to confirm the law of conservation of energy. After measuring the potential and kinetic energies at various positions of an oscillating mass attached on a spring, we add the values of these two kinds of energy up and see if the sum is the same at every positions

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 5

    Lab 5, Conservation of Energy

    Cuong Nguyen
    Section 12
    September 25, 2014

    Objectives

    The purpose of this lab is to confirm the law of conservation of energy. After
    measuring the potential and kinetic energies at various positions of an oscillating
    mass attached on a spring, we add the values of these two kinds of energy up
    and see if the sum is the same at every positions.

    Procedure

    The experimental equipments consists of a spring hung from a metal rob with a
    mass (0.5005 kg) placed on the other end and a motion detector. To initiate the
    oscillation, we pull the spring down a few centimeters and release it such that
    it moves in vertical direction. After that, the position of the mass is recorded
    with the motion detector.

    Data

    The position of the mass with respect to time is recorded and plotted on the on
    a graph in Figure 1. A sine curve is fitted to the graph and it shows that the
    frequency of the motion is about 8.08 rad/s

    Figure 1: The position vs time graph is a sine wave.


    As seen in Figure 2. We choose a period with minimal noise and find a set
    of slope, which is also the velocity of the mass, along this period.

    Figure 2: The set of velocity of the mass along the chosen period.

    Discussion

    The free-body diagrams of the mass oscillating up and down on the end of a
    spring in three situations are depicted below.

    (a) At equilibrium. This


    situation corresponds to the
    middle of the oscillation.

    (b) When the mass accelerates up. This situation corresponds to the bottom of
    the oscillation.

    (c) When the mass accelerates down. This situation


    coressponds to the top of
    the oscillation.

    Figure 3: Free-body diagrams for the oscillating mass in three situations


    Let the position of the mass at which the spring is not stretched or compressed be the reference point of potential energy (i.e Us = 0), we have the
    following equations:
    At the top position
    Ug = mgyt

    Us =

    1 2
    ky
    2 t

    K=0

    At the middle position


    Ug = 0

    Us = 0

    K=

    1
    mv 2
    2 m

    At the bottom position


    Ug = mgyb

    Us =

    1 2
    ky
    2 b

    K=0

    The total mechanical energy for each situation:


    1
    Etop = mgyt + kyt2
    2

    Emiddle =

    1
    mv 2
    2 m

    1
    Ebottom = mgyb + kyb2
    2

    Substituting the acquired data into the above equations, we have the following table of kinetic, potential and mechanical energy of the mass at each
    position.

    Table 1: Kinetic, potential and mechanical energy at each position of the mass.

    Figure 4: Kinetic, potential and mechanical energies as a function of time


    According to the data in Table 1, the mechanical energies of the mass on
    average is 0.27 0.3J.
    Theoretically, the mechanical energies of the mass must be constant at every
    point. However, the points represent mechanical energies in Figure 4 do not align
    in a straight line. Also, the data shows that the fractional uncertainty is not in
    the preferred range (smaller than 0.1) to be conclusive about the conservation
    of energy theory. This large error might be due to the noise read by the motion
    detector and human errors.

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