Phys4AF14 mrwallace: 11/20/2014 Conservation of Linear and Angular Momentum

Purpose:

The purpose of this experiment is to show how linear and angular momentum can be transfered to solve equation involving colosions which produce angular motions.

Experiment:

For this experiement we are going to have a metal ball slide down a ramp and collide into our rotating disk aperateus. We first had to measure the value of inertia for our aperateus which will have the ball colide into to create an angular motion. To do this we took a known mass attached to a string which we then wrapped around our aperateus. Then we used a motion sensosr to find the angular acceleration of the system. We then used the angular acceleration, known hanging mass, known aperateus mass, and the radius where the string wraped around to find the inertia of the aperateus.

Here is the aperateus with the hnaging mass.

Here is our measured angular acceleration:

With our known mass and the average angular acceleration we solved the inertia value of the aperatus shown below.

Know we took the ramp which the ball will roll down on and took measurements of the device so we can determine the height the ball will travel down and then we had to calculate the velocity at which the ball left the ramp.

To calculate the height we just measured the ramp with a meter stick.

To measure the velocity we measured the height of the bottom of the ramp to the floor with a meter stick and took a sheet of carbon paper to mark the landing distance away from the table of the ball.

With that all set up we let the ball roll down the ramp to hit the sheet of carbon paper a couple of times to get the average distance from the end of the ramp to the landing distance on the floor.

With this data we used conservation of energy to calculate the velocity of the ball leaving the ramp.

Here our some measured data we where given for the ball and hanging mass. Also some ramp height measurements are shown.

To the floor from the bottom of the ramp is 95.5cm and the ball landed a length of 52.2 cm from the end of the ramp to the distance parallel to the table top on to the floor.

Here is our energy calculation to find the velocity the ball left the ramp assuming the ball did not slip at all.

Now we had enough information to predict the final angular velocity of the apparatus after collision of the rolling ball down the ramp. Here is our prediction of all the gathered data using conservation of angular momentum.