9/30/2014 Angular Acceleration: Part 1

Purpose:

The purpose of this lab was to measure and collect data for angular acceleration  to later find the moment of inertia, but we only seeing what factors affect the angular acceleration.

Experiment:

The experiment we used an apparatus which has two rotating disks which have a number of ticks along the side which can be used to measure the angular velocity of the disks. This apparatus also has a air hose which force air in between the two disks to create an almost frictionless surface. We used another smaller attachment on top of the disk to attack a wire which will wrap the wire will wrap around and which leads over a pulley off the table attached to a hanging mass as shown in the picture below.

We measure the diameter and mass of the top steel disk, the diameter and mass of the bottom steel disk, the diameter and mass of the top aluminum disk, the diameter and mass of the smaller torque pulley, the diameter and mass of the larger torque pulley, and the mass of the hanging mass supplied the the apparatus.

Bottom Steel:

mass = 1348 g

diameter = ?

Top Steel:

mass = 1358 g

diameter = ?

Aluminum:

mass = 465 g

diameter = ?

With our now measure values we rand six experiments to find separate angular acceleration. We used the marks of the disk which was 200 for one revolution and Logger Pro with a sensor to measure the up and down acceleration and find an average acceleration.  Experiments 1,2 and 3 are of changing the hanging mass, experiments 1 and 4 show the effect of changing radius, and experiments 4,5 and 6 show the effect of the changing the rotating mass.

Here is one example of the data we collected showing the downward and upward angular acceleration:

Here is all the data we collected: