Centripetal Acceleration vs. Angular Frequency
Purpose: To determine the relationship between centripetal acceleration and angular speed.
Procedure: For this lab, the apparatus depicted below was previously set up by the instructor.
Procedure: For this lab, the apparatus depicted below was previously set up by the instructor.
(Full apparatus setup)
A photogate was used to measure the length of time it takes for the disk to complete a rotation. The apparatus was powered by electricity at varying voltages. The acceleration was recorded via an accelerometer hooked up to LoggerPro software. We gathered data for 10 rotations with an initial start time to to the completion of the 10th rotation t10, increasing the voltage to produce smaller rotation times and greater centripetal acceleration. The radius of the disk was measured at approximately 13.8 cm.
Data Gathered: Shown below is an Excel spreadsheet containing all the data which was gathered, as well as calculated values of angular speed and values the radius should be.
(Data gathered and organized in an Excel spreadsheet)
When the measured acceleration is plotted against our calculated value of omega^2, the slope of said graph yields the radius of the disk!
(LoggerPro graph of acceleration vs. (angular speed)^2)
The slope of this line is 13.71 cm, this value for the radius of the disk matches well with our average calculated value, as well as the physically measured value. The uncertainty in this exercise is mostly in the physically measured value of the radius of the disk, as this is an eyeball measurement, whereas all other data was collected directly and live via LoggerPro software.
No comments:
Post a Comment