Applied Physics

Lab Report #3
Group 4

Muhammad Murtaza Mir 210501039

Muarij Irfan 210501006

Noor Mustafa 210501018

Malik Haider Ali 210501043

Muhammad Qaseem 210501036

Daniyal Khan 210501016

[Type text] Page 0

CONTENTS
 Introduction.........................................................................................................................................2
 Apparatus............................................................................................................................................3
 Procedure.............................................................................................................................................4
Experimental Setup:................................................................................................................................4
Capstone Setup:.......................................................................................................................................4
 Calculations And RESULT:....................................................................................................................5

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 BALLISTIC PENDULUM

 INTRODUCTION

In this assignment, the ballistic pendulum will be used to measure the momentum of a steel ball
through which we can find the velocity and kinetic energy of the ball. It is usually used for
measuring the bullets momentum. Although the ballistic pendulum is considered obsolete, it
remained in use for a significant length of time and led to great advances in the science of
ballistics. The ballistic pendulum is still found in physics classrooms today, because of its
simplicity and usefulness in demonstrating properties of momentum and energy. Unlike other
methods of measuring the speed of a bullet, the basic calculations for a ballistic pendulum do not
require any measurement of time, but rely only on measures of mass and distance. The
momentum before the collision and momentum just after the collision are equal; this can be
shown by the equation.
mVi = mV---- equation 1
Where:
m is the sum of constant mass of ball and the mass of the pendulum
Vi is the initial launch velocity of the ball
V is the velocity of catcher ball system
After putting kinetic energy of the system equal to the increasing gravitational potential energy,
we get the equation 2.
½ mV^2 = mgh
Where:
h is the slant length of the pendulum which components give another formula for height;
h= L (1-cosQ)
Finally, if we use equation 1 in equation 2 by putting V as the resultant, we can find the initial
launch velocity of the ball.
Vi = 2gh (mass of ball + mass of pendulum)/mass of ball

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  APPARATUS

 Pendulum Base Stand

It is used as the backbone for the process as it
holds the masses and provides a rotatory and
ejecting space for the pendulum and the ball.

 PASCO Mini Launcher

It is used to fire the Steel Ball

 Catching Pendulum
It is used to catch the fired ball. Its upper end is composed to a rod attached to rotary motion
sensor to detect maximum angle formed by the catcher

 PASPORT Rotary Motion Sensor

It is used as the instrument for recording the angle of the pendulum while it oscillates after the
impact with the steel ball.

 Steel Ball
It is used as the brute force required to push the oscillator after impact and is put inside the
launcher installed in the base stand.

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 PROCEDURE

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP:

1. Measure Masses Of Ball and Pendulum also find length of pendulum

2. Set up the mini launcher, bracket, table clamp, mounting rod, and rotatory motion sensor
by sliding the three-step pulley onto the RMS shaft

3. Using the end hole on the pendulum rod and thread the attachment screw into the hole.
Screw it all the way in so it is not loosely captured. Thread the screw into the end of the
RMS shaft.

4. Align the pendulum rod with the tabs on the pulley

5. Adjust the position of the RMS so the pendulum is aligned with the launcher

6. Place the projectile in the end of the barrel

7. Use the pushrod included with the launcher to push the ball down the barrel until the
trigger catches

CAPSTONE SETUP:

1. Connect the RMS to a PASPORT interface. Connect the interface to a Computer and start
Capstone

2. Set the sampling rate of the Rotatory motion sensor to 250 Hz

3. Prepare a graph to show angular position versus time.

4. Start data recording

5. Pull the trigger of the launcher

6. Stop data collection.

7. Repeat the process three times with weight attached to pendulum and three times with
weight removed to get six graphs

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 8. Find the average initial velocity of the ball

9. Find the relationship between momentum and Kinetic energy of the ball

 CALCULATIONS AND RESULT:

With mass:

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Without mass:

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Question and answers:

1. If we increase the mass attached to the bottom of the catcher, how will this affect the
initial velocity of the ball? What will be the effect on the initial velocity of the ball if
we decrease the mass attached to the bottom of the catcher? Explain.
Increasing mass will increase the initial velocity of ball and decreasing the mass will
decrease the initial velocity of ball as in the equation for finding initial velocity, ((mass of
pendulum) + (mass of ball))/(mass of ball),increasing the mass on pendulum will
obviously increase the mass of pendulum which in turn increases the initial velocity or
ball and vice versa.
2. What will be the effect on the initial velocity of the ball if we increase the distance
between the catcher and the barrel of the Mini Launcher? (Hint: The air resistance
will increase).
the initial velocity of the ball will decrease if we increase the distance between the
catcher and the barrel of the mini launcher as the air resistance increases ,because a small
ammount of kinetic energy is converted to thermal energy when the ball cuts through
more air particles to move forward.
3. What will be the kinetic energy of the catcher-ball system at the moment pendulum
reaches its maximum amplitude?
the kinetic energy ,when the pendulum reaches its maximum amplitude, will be zero
because all the kinetic energy will be converted to gravitational potential energy.

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 4. During launch, the ball was pushed down the barrel until the trigger caught the
third position. What will be the effect on the initial velocity of the ball if we pushed
the ball down to first or second position?

Pushing the barrel to the third position caused the spring of the barrel to compress a lot
and so it had loads of elastic potential energy which converted to k.e when the ball started
moving and so the ball moves with high speed, it the 2nd position is caught then the
spring is pushed less and so lesser elastic energy which means lesser K.E, speed of ball
when its shot. And pushing the barrel to first position causes even less elastic energy
stored in spring and even lesser speed of ball when shot.

5. Calculate the standard deviation of the initial velocity of the ball?

To find the standard deviation of the values in a table (initial velocity table), we first find
the mean of all values in table and then subtract that mean from each value in the table
and square the answer for each. Then find the mean of those squared values and then take
the square root of that mean.
The standard deviation of table

is:
S = 0.1443

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