Coefficient of Friction Lab

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By: Joshua Susman

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11/22/19

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Mrs.Tresser
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 Introduction:
According to the five laws of friction, for all moving objects the amount of kinetic friction
produced is proportional and perpendicular to the normal force being applied to the object and
the amount of friction generated depends on the nature of the surface it’s in contact with. If we
applied this idea to the purpose of our lab, which is to find the coefficient of both kinetic and
static friction of a felt block on a plastic track, it would mean that to find the coefficient of both
kinetic and static friction all we would need to find was the amount of normal force being applied
to an object and change the sign so that it would be perpendicular to it.

From previous lessons and labs we’ve learned that the formula for static friction can be broken
down into its individual parts as shown with the formula F(s) = μsn. This is because when we
look at what static friction is, we can see the mass and gravity working together to create the
coefficient of static friction with gravity pushing down on the object and that objects mass pulling
on whatever force is action on it. This combined with the normal force which balances out the

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force of gravity gives us our formula for static friction and tells us that we can find its coefficient

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by measuring its mass and the normal force action on it. This also is the same for kinetic friction

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with the formulas only slightly changing to be F(k) = μkn.

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Knowing these formulas allows us to find the practical formula for this lab which would be the
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formula Fg(2) = f(s). This is because Fg(2) would be equivalent to mass and gravity which
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make up the coefficient of static friction with the mass of the hooked masses and the felt block
it’s attached to (along with any bar masses on top of it) being pushed down by gravity in order to
create friction. But this isn’t complete without the normal force action on it, which is why the
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string holding it up is there which makes it so whenever the mass becomes stronger than the
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normal force the static friction breaks allowing the block to move. Because of this the static
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friction changes into kinetic friction whenever the block moves at a constant speed which can be
seen in the formula f(k) = Fg(2). Since this is true, we can deduce that the static friction must be
stronger than the kinetic friction.
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Materials:
● 1 Large Plastic Track
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● 1 Felt Block with a Kite String attached to it

● Set of Hooked Masses
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● 1 Motion Sensor
● 1 Pulley
● 1 Chromebook with Sparkvue
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● 4 Bar Masses

Procedure:
1. Gather materials
2. Set up motion sensor and connect to chromebook

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 3. Place the felt block near the end of the plastic track
4. Attach the pulley to the end of the plastic track
5. Put the kite string through the pulley
6. Start the motion sensor
7. Attach hooked masses until the felt block moves at a constant speed
8. Record the weight of the hooked masses
9. Repeat steps 5-7 two more times
10. Repeat steps 5-8 three more times
11. Find averages for all masses
12. Plot the normal force against the friction on a graph

Data & Calculations:

Static Friction

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Mass of Felt 0 Bar Masses 1 Bar Masses 2 Bar Masses 3 Bar Masses 4 Bar Masses

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Block = 139.5 (g) (g) (g) (g) (g)

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grams

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Trial 1 40 90 150 200 250
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Trial 2 30 90 120 190 250

Trial 3 30 100 120 170 220

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Averages 33.3 93.3 130 186.7 240

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Kinetic Friction
0 Bar Masses 1 Bar Masses 2 Bar Masses 3 Bar Masses 4 Bar Masses
(g) (g) (g) (g) (g)
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Trial 1 30 90 140 150 200

Trial 2 30 90 120 150 200

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Trial 3 30 70 120 150 200

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Averages 30 83.3 126.7 150 200

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Static Friction =

Kinetic Friction =
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Conclusion:
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By remembering the force of gravity and experimentally determining the normal force
acting on the block, it was found that the coefficient of static friction was larger than the
coefficient of kinetic friction and continued to get larger as more bar masses were added to the
block. This can be seen on the graph where the static and kinetic friction coefficients started off
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close together and slowly moved apart from each other when adding one and two bar masses
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to the block. But the biggest change happened when I added the 3rd bar mass where the two
drastically separated from each other which only increased when the 4th bar mass was added.
This makes sense since it’s stated that static friction would be stronger than kinetic friction and
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is shown on the graph with kinetic friction never passing static friction.
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When looking at the collected data, it is clear to see that the experiment we performed
had a large number of inconsistencies and because of this could be seen as invalid. This is
because when looking at the data table for static friction during our trial with three bar masses,
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there is very little consistency between each trial with the first trial being 200 grams of hooked
weight, the second trial being 190 grams, and the third and final trial being 170 grams. When
compared to a number of other trials which had two or more trials with the same weight, the
constant change between each trial and the actual change from the first to second trial being 10
grams and from the second to third trial being 20 grams also provides another example of how
our lab data could be seen as invalid. But there are some points in the lab that show

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 consistency like our trials with 0, 3, and 4 bar masses when measuring kinetic friction which
showed no changes in the amount of weight it needed to move over all three trials. But this is
greatly overshadowed by the fact that our data doesn’t align well with the theory that static
friction should have a significantly larger amount of force needed to move it than kinetic friction
should since if we look at our two bar mass trials, our static friction trials at the very least
required 120 grams to move, but when we look at the kinetic trials the same thing can be seen
in our first trial it exceeded the static friction. Along with this overall when looking at the trend of
our data on the graph you can see that up till the 3rd and 4th bar mass trials, the amount of
kinetic and static friction were extremely close and then suddenly becoming so far apart from
each other with the addition of a single bar mass doesn’t make sense. Some sources of error
that might of caused this could of been when measuring the kinetic friction of the block we
banged on the table to break up static friction, but we didn’t hit the table at a steady pace or at
the same strength each time which could have allowed more static friction to stay therefore
increasing the amount of weight needed to move the block and the coefficient of kinetic friction.

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Work Cited:
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● Five Laws of Friction. Michigan State University,

https://msu.edu/course/kin/330/frcition.htm.
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