Expirement 9: Collisions Deep Panjwani

October 27, 2011

Burhan Riaz Andrew Im Jessica Danaux Anthony Pesare

Objective: Investigate a series of collisions between two spheres to determine the momenta and energies of the balls before and after the collision.

Equipment: Metal ball: collision object Glass ball: collision object. Carbon paper: record displacement of balls. Ramp: ball gains momentum due to gravity. Plumb line: points to the point of origin in x-axis.

Procedure: Experiment 1: Head-on collision, Glass on Glass 1. Measure the mass of the balls. 2. Roll one ball from the top of the ramp and observe where it lands on the carbon paper. 3. Roll the ball several times and find the average of the pattern of dates made on the carbon paper. 4. Record the initial velocity of the incident sphere. 5. Put one ball on the set screw and roll the other one on the top of the ramp. Find where they land.

6. Repeat the collision three times and estimate the average of the dots. 7. Calculate the horizontal velocity of each sphere. 8. Calculate the initial and final momentum. What do these results say about the conservation of momentum. 9. Calculate the kinetic energy before and after the collision. What is the ration of the final kinetic energy to initial kinetic energy? What does this indicate about the type of collision? Experiment 2: Head-on collision, Steel on Glass 1. Measure and record the mass of the steel ball. 2. Repeat steps 2-9 above using the steel ball as the "incident" sphere and the glass as the "target" sphere. Experiment 3: Head-on collision, Glass on Steel 1. Observe a collision in which the glass ball is used as the incident sphere and the steel ball is used as the target sphere. Describe what occurs. Experiment 4: Glancing collision, Glass on Glass 1. Loosen the clamp so that you can swivel the set up. Move the ramp to the angled position. Use the protractor to measure the angle. Align the system so that it is perpendicular to the edge of the table. 2. Roll the incident sphere down the ramp and use the carbon paper to mark its landing point. Measure the horizontal distance and calculate the initial horizontal velocity. Mark the origin using the plumb bob.

3. Balance the target sphere on the set screw and record the landing positions for several collisions between the incident sphere and the target sphere. 4. Draw a vector from the origin to the landing spot of each sphere. Measure the magnitude of each vector and the angle each makes with the direction of the initial velocity of the incident sphere. 5. Calculate the momentum of each sphere before and after the collision. The momentum is in the same direction as the velocity. Use your calculated momentum and the directions measured above to draw the momentum vectors to scale. 6. Use the "tip-to-tail" vector addition method to add the final momentum vectors of the incident and target spheres. On the same graph, draw the initial momentum of the incident sphere. How do the initial and final momenta compare?

Equipment: Data Table of Experiments 1 and 2

Experiment 1 Mass of the incident ball Mass of the target ball Pre-collision displacement of Incident ball Displacement of incident ball Initial velocity of Incident ball Final velocity of Incident ball Displacement of target ball 11.3g 10.2g 0.475m 0.167m 1.02m/s 0.39m/s 0.345m Experiment 2 30g 10.2g .485m 0.35m 1.62m/s 0.81m/s 0.54m

Initial velocity of target ball Final velocity of target ball Time Initial momentum Final momentum Initial kinetic energy Final kinetic energy Kinetic energy ratio

0m/s 0.8m/s 0.43s 0.0115kg*m/s 0.0126kg*m/s .0148J .00412J 0.28J

0m/s 1.26m/s 0.43s 0.0486kg*m/s 0.0372kg*m/s .0394J .01799J 0.46J

Both were inelastic collisions. See attached work.

Experiment 3: We observed that upon impact of the glass ball on the steel ball, the glass ball bounced towards the table while the steel ball falls off the table. This is to be expected because the opposite force created, forces the glass ball to go to the opposite direction. Experiment 4 Data Table
Experiment 4 Ramp Angle Mass of the incident ball Mass of the target ball Pre-collision displacement of Incident ball 26 degrees 11.3g 10.2g 0.475m

Displacement of incident ball Initial velocity of Incident ball Final velocity of Incident ball Displacement of target ball Initial velocity of target ball Final velocity of target ball Time Angle of incident ball vector Angle of target ball vector x-axis initial momentum x-axis final momentum y-axis initial momentum y-axis final momentum Initial momentum Final momentum

0.22m/s 1.02m/s 0.51m/s 0.345m 0m/s 0.8m/s 0.43s 66 degrees 50 degrees 0.0165kg*m/s 0.0076kg*m/s 0.008kg*m/s 0.011kg*m/s 0.018kg*m/s 0.014kg*m/s

See attached work.

Conclusion: We obtained information of the collision's initial and final momentums and were able to find out that they were elastic collisions. We also found the initial and final kinetic energies for each collisions. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the smaller mass of the glass ball repelled it away from the steel ball upon impact. Experiment 1 and 2 showed the difference of momentum and kinetic energies between similar balls such as glass-onglass collisions and steel-on-glass collisions.