CONT

1.

INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................3

2.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE.....................................................................4

3.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.......................................................................4

3.1.

CALIBRATION

3.2.

ATTRACTION FORCE BETWEEN

3.4.

ELASTIC COLLISION

OF A

FORCE SENSOR..............................................................................4

ON AN

TWO

MAGNETS...............................................................5

AIR CUSHION TRACK............................................................8

4.

REFERENCES.........................................................................................10

5.

ANNEX.................................................................................................. 10
5.1.

PREPARED DATA TABLES......................................................................................... 10

LIST OF FIGURES
YFIG. 1:........................... MEASURED

VOLTAGES OVER CALCULATED WEIGHT AND REGRESION LINE.

5
FIG. 2: SET-UP

FOR MEASURING THE ATTRACTION FORCE OF TWO MAGNETS...................................6

FIG. 3: LOG-LOG
FIG. 4: SET-UP

GRAPH OF

F(S)

OVER R.................................................................................8

FOR MEASURING THE MOMENTUM AND IMPULSE OF FORCE.....................................9

FIG. 5: RECORDED

VALUES FOR ELASTIC COLLISION..................................................................9

LIST OF TABLES
YTABLE 1. MEASURED

AND CALCULATED DATA USED FOR CALIBRATING THE FORCE SENSOR...............4

TABLE 2. MEASURED

AND CALCULATED VALUES FOR FORCE AND DISTANCE ANALYSIS......................7

1.

INTRODUCTION

The aim of these experiments was to analyse the validity of the 1/r2 law for magnetic forces and the
change of momentum in elastic collisions. For this purpose, the experiment was divided in three parts.
First a force sensor was calibrated using a set of weights of known mass and measuring an output
voltage for each weight to calculate a calibration curve. Then, in the second part of the experiment,
the force sensor was used to measure the attraction force between two magnets. The attractive force
was calculated at different distances r to analyse the validity of the distance law for this force.
The third part of the experiment was devoted to analysing the relationship between the impulse of a
force and the change in linear momentum using a sled on an air cushion track.

2.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

The experiments described herein were performed following the procedures included in the script of
the introductory laboratory course physics.

3.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1

Calibration of a Force Sensor

The calibration factor for a bending rod force sensor (U-OL) was calculated. The force sensor has a
known measuring range between 0 and 5 N. The force sensor output was connected to a signal
amplifier (U OL, with the damping switch OFF), which was connected to a power supply and an
oscilloscope was used to measure the output voltage Um of the signal amplifier. Then, using a
weighting platform, series of known masses m having a weight G where systematically measured with
the force sensor and the corresponding voltages Um were recorded.

Afterwards the weight G was calculated using the following equation:

G=mg

(eq. 1)

Table 1 shows the measured values for voltage Um for the 10 different masses m, the calculated error
for the voltage measurements, and the calculated weight G according to the value of each mass. The
error associated with the voltage measurements was obtained from the amplitude of the deviation of
signal reading from the mean reading of the oscilloscope, this was measure using the measurement
bars of the oscilloscope.
Table 1.

Measured and calculated data used for calibrating the force sensor.
m/g
49.3
99.48
149.07
199.25
300.73
400.5
501.1

Um/mV
285
372
412
433
635
848
1050

U/mV
14
14
14
14
14
14
14

G/N
0.4838
0.9762
1.4629
1.9553
2.9512
3.9302
4.9174

Following this, G was plotted against the voltage output Um, a regression line was calculated for the
plotted values and a calibration curve was obtained.

1.2
1

f(x) = 0.17x + 0.17

R = 0.98

0.8
Um/V

0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

G/N

Fig. 1: Measured voltages over calculated weight and regresion line.

Figure 1 shows an almost linear relation between U and G, which is given by the following equation:

U=171.8 G+167

(Eq. 2)

The y-intercept of this calibration line is an adjustment factor resulting from the voltage signal
generated by the force sensor when no external loads are applied to it. During the experiment it was
observed that when no external loads were applied to the force sensor, a voltage signal U 0 of 199 mV
was constantly generated. The difference of 32 mV between the calculated value and the
experimentally observed value may be an indicator of an uncertainty in the measurements. It is
important to mention that the fourth measurement does not comply with the linear behaviour that the
sensor is supposed to have. One cause of this error may be the unstable readings of voltage in the
oscilloscope.

Attraction Force Between two Magnets

The set-up of the experiment was configured according to figure 2.

Fig. 2: Set-up for measuring the attraction force of two magnets.

To perform this experiment two magnets were mounted in aluminium tubes, which were screwed to
rods. The upper magnet was attached to the force sensor (S) together with the rod. A guide (A) was
used to confine the motion of the upper magnet to a vertical direction. The lower magnet was
mounted on an adjustable table V, to a position where the longitudinal axes of both magnets
superimposed each other.
First, the force excerpted on the force sensor by the weight of the first magnet was recorded using a
distance r for which the attraction between the magnets could be neglected, this measurement
corresponded to 7.44 mV. Then, the initial distance between both magnets was set using a PVC piece
of 20.00 mm 0.05mm. Subsequently, the adjustable table was set to the scale position s=10.00 mm
0.05mm and the voltage US(s) was measured. Subsequently, s was reduced to about s=2 mm in steps
of approx. 0.5 mm and the output voltage US(s) was measured each time.
To examine the validity of the 1/r2 distance law, the real distance r between both magnets was
calculated. First, the force Fg(s) corresponding to each measured output voltage US(s) was calculated
using the data of the calibration function (eq. 2) and rewriting it as seen in equation 3.

F g (s )=

U sb
a

(eq. 3)

Then, the weight G of the first magnet was subtracted from the force Fg(s) to find the forces F(s)
caused by magnetic attraction were obtained.

F ( s )=F G ( s )G

(eq. 4)

Then, the deflection d(F) of the bending rod of the force sensor was calculated with equation 5, where
a1 and a2 values are 0.4129 and -3.96E-4 respectively.

d ( F )=a1 F +a2 F

(eq. 5)

Using the calculated deflection d(F), the real distance r between both magnets at a scale position s on
the adjustable table was calculated using equation 6. The results are shown in table 2.

r=sd
Table 2.
U/mV
8.74
22.4
27.2
26.9
28.8
32.5
32.2
35.6
40.1
43.8
49.1
58.8
65.1
79.1
101
135
337

(eq. 6)

Measured and calculated values for force and distance analysis.

s/mm
10.0
9.5
9.0
8.5
8.0
7.5
7.0
6.5
6.0
5.5
5.0
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0

FG/N
0.0509
0.13
0.158
0.157
0.168
0.189
0.187
0.207
0.233
0.255
0.286
0.342
0.379
0.46
0.588
0.786
1.962

Fs /N
0.008
0.087
0.115
0.113
0.124
0.146
0.144
0.164
0.19
0.212
0.242
0.299
0.336
0.417
0.545
0.742
1.918

d(F)/mm
0.021
0.054
0.065
0.065
0.069
0.078
0.077
0.086
0.096
0.105
1.18E-01
1.41E-01
1.56E-01
1.90E-01
2.43E-01
3.24E-01
8.08E-01

r/mm
9.98
9.45
8.93
8.44
7.93
7.42
6.92
6.41
5.9
5.39
4.882
4.3587
3.8436
3.31
2.7574
2.1758
1.1916

F(s) was log-log plotted over r, with a regression line with the fixed slope -2 drawn into the diagram,
as shown in figure 3.

Fig. 3: Log-Log graph of F(s) over r

The law 1/r2 was not validated by the results of the experiment. As seen in figure 3, the regression line
with gradient -2 only coincides with a few points. It is visible that the first measured values behave as
the last values would be expected to, that is they do not follow a straight line relationship with the rest
of the values. It was found that the slope of the best fit line through the points excluding the first two
is of about -1.3.

Elastic Collision on an Air Cushion Track

In this experiment an air cushion track, according to figure 4, is used to determine the relationship
between the impulse of force and the change in momentum. The force sensor was fixed on mounting
H and sled k1 was placed on the track L k, which is nearly frictionless due to the air. The sled was
manually accelerated towards the force sensor, during its motion it passes the light barrier Ls twice
which is connected to the CH2 of the oscilloscope. The sensor is connected to the amplifier and to
CH1 of the oscilloscope. Afterwards the signals are recorded on one screen and the momentum is
finally determined. For that the mass of the sled and the width of the screen on the sled are measured.

Fig. 4: Set-up for measuring the momentum and impulse of force.

The recorded screenshot for the oscilloscope is shown in figure 5. The square-wave is the signal from
the light barrier and the other one is from the force sensor.

Fig. 5: Recorded values for elastic collision

From the measured values tLS=0.1264 s 0.0001 s and and tLS=0.1316 s 0.0001 s were found for
the motion before and after the collision. The mass m of the sledge was 211.47 g and the width d of
plate B was 3.0 cm 0.05 cm. Using these values, the change in momentum was calculated with
equation 7. The maximum error for this calculation was obtained using equation 8. As requested in the
script m and d were regarded as error free.

p=m d (

1
1
+ ' )
t LS t LS

| | | |

error p=

md
md
'
t ls+
t ls
2
2
t ls
t ' ls

(eq. 7)

(eq. 8)

The resulting change of momentum

p was 0.09834 Ns 7 E-5 Ns

The change of momentum was also determined with the values recorded on the oscilloscope. To do
so, the mean value of all measurements before and after the collision was taken. This was subtracted
from all measured values during the collision. This mean value was found to be 0.00299V. Then the
sum of the measurements during the collision was taken over all values, which is 77.74V. This values
was then converted to a force by using the calibration curve of the force sensor calculated in section
3.1, giving a force of 451.5N. Afterwards, the resulting force was multiplied by

t=100.05

Sec
/2500 = 2E-4. The resulting change in momentum

t , which is

is given by

equation

p=451.5 N 2E-4 s= 0.090Ns.

(eq. 9)

If we compare both results we see that there is a small difference between the theoretical and the
experimental values. Small losses in friction and possible errors in calibration of the sensor may
account for the small difference between the values. Overall the values are close enough to say that
the system is conservative.