23 Hooke's Law

22.
Hooke’s Law
Materials
Starter question.
A stone is dropped from a hot air balloon
descending at 4.0 ms-1 at a height of 50m.
1. Find the velocity of the stone when it
hits the ground
2. Find the time it takes for the stone to
hit the ground
3. Find the height of the balloon when the
stone hits the ground
A stone is dropped from a hot air balloon descending at 4.0 ms-1 at a
height of 50m.
1. Find the velocity of the stone when it hits the ground.
2. Find the time it takes for the stone to hit the ground
3. Find the height of the balloon when the stone hits the ground
Learning outcomes
Content
Skills
• To be able to…
• To be able to…
• Recall Hooke’s Law • Work effectively as a team during
• Describe the relationship between a practical
force and extension for a stretched • Independently complete
spring challenging problems
• Analyse the difference in spring • Use a large gradient triangle to
constant for springs in series and find a gradient
parallel
• Calculate the energy stored in a
stretched spring
What happens when you apply
increasing tension to a spring or wire?
What happens when you apply increasing tension to a
spring or wire?
Sketch the following two graphs:
1. Force (applied to spring) against Extension (x-axis)
2. Force (applied to spring) against Length of spring (x-axis)
What happens when you apply
increasing tension to a spring or wire?
Hooke’s Law states that:
The change in length produced by a force on a wire or spring is
directly proportional to the force applied, provided that the
elastic limit has not been exceeded.
That means that:
To turn a proportionality into an equation we need to introduce a constant of

proportionality...
This constant of proportionality is known as the spring constant given a

symbol, k
Materials: Hooke’s Law
We call k the spring constant and it defines how stiff the spring is
How can we find K experimentally?
What should we do to minimise errors?
Take care to avoid confusion between overall length & extension.
Where
Materials : Hooke’s Law
Calculate the gradient of
the graph to find the
F /N
spring constant:
F
L
L /m
1. Make the “gradient triangle” as large as possible.

2. Avoid outliers, choose data points which are on the line.
Materials : HSW
When we undertake an experiment, we should
only change one variable at a time to make it a
fair test. We call this the “independent variable”
L /m
Quantities we measure, (and subsequently calculate) are called “dependent

variables”.
All other variables which are kept the same are called the “control variables”
Often graphs have the independent variable along the bottom and the
dependent up the side.
Hooke’s law is a notable exception.
Materials : Springs in
Parallel
p q Springs in parallel share the load & have the
same extension acting like a single spring
with a combined spring constant.
L
The force needed to stretch springs p & q

respectively is:-
Fp = kpL & Fq = kqL
Weight supported by both springs W = Fp + Fq

SoParallel
by substituting & expanding:
p q
W = kpL + kqL which can be considered
equal to kL where k is the effective spring
L
constant.
kL = kpL + kqL
Cancel out L:

k = kp + kq
Series
Springs in series share the same tension which is
p equal to the weight attached to the two springs, W.
The extensions in the two springs is given by:


L q
and
The total extension is,
where is the effective spring constant.

Which spring is the stiffest?
F/N
Which spring has the

smallest spring constant?
Which spring is stretched

beyond its elastic limit?
L/m
C stops obeying Hooke’s law.

After the elastic limit the material behaves in a ductile fashion.
The material stretches more with a small extra force. The spring
will not return to its original length. It has been permanently
deformed.
Materials : Energy in a
spring
The stretched spring has elastic
potential energy. Work has been
done because the force moves
through a distance.
The distance moved by the force is L, the force involved ranges
from 0 to F and so the average is F/2.
Only valid for where Hooke’s law is obeyed.

Materials : Energy in a
spring
At all times the area under the
graph equals energy stored,
sometimes you will need to
count squares!
Summary:
1. We’ve seen Hooke’s law and how we can use it to establish
the spring constant.
2. We’ve discussed variables and how to accurately establish
the spring constant experimentally.
3. We’ve seen how combinations of springs in parallel and series
can act as a single spring.
4. We have related the elastic potential energy in a stretched
spring to the work done stretching the spring.
To do:
1. Plot your graph of Force against Extension (
2. Add you error bars to your data points.
3. Draw you max. and min. trend lines.
4. Find the gradient of your max and min trend lines.
5. These two gradients give your max. spring constant and your min. spring
constant.
6. Find the average of these two values, k.
7. Find the uncertainty for your value of k:
8. Find the energy stored in your spring when a force of 7.0 N is applied using .
You will need to find the extension using this formula:
9. Explain 3 sources of errors in our experiment to find the spring constant and
explain what you can do to decrease them, i.e. improve the accuracy of your
experimental value of k.
10. Complete summary questions on page 188 (from textbook).

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22.

To turn a proportionality into an equation we need to introduce a constant of

This constant of proportionality is known as the spring constant given a

1. Make the “gradient triangle” as large as possible.

Quantities we measure, (and subsequently calculate) are called “dependent

The force needed to stretch springs p & q

Fp = kpL & Fq = kqL

Weight supported by both springs W = Fp + Fq

kL = kpL + kqL

Cancel out L:

The extensions in the two springs is given by:

The total extension is,

where is the effective spring constant.

Which spring has the

Which spring is stretched

C stops obeying Hooke’s law.

Only valid for where Hooke’s law is obeyed.

10. Complete summary questions on page 188 (from textbook).

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