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Free - Fall 3

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17 views3 pages

Free - Fall 3

B b

Uploaded by

xnoof24
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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EXPERIMENT 1 : FREE FALL


1. OBJECTİVE

Investigate how acceleration of a falling object is related to the falling height.

2. INTRODUCTION

If a body falls to the ground in the Earth’s gravitational field from a height h, it undergoes a
constant acceleration g, as long as the speed of the fall is slow so that friction can be ignored. Such
a falling motion is called free fall.

In this experiment a steel ball is suspended from a release mechanism. As soon as it is released into
free fall, an electronic timer is started. After it has fallen a distance h the ball hits a target plate at
the bottom which stops the time measurement at a time t.

Since the ball is not moving before it starts to fall at time t0 = 0 its initial velocity is zero, i.e.v0 = 0.
Therefore the distance covered in time t is given as follows

The results for different fall distances are to be entered as value pairs in a displacement/time
diagram. The distance h through which the ball falls is a non-linear function of the time t, as can be
shown by comparing a straight-line fit with a parabolic fit for the measured data. To obtain a linear
graph it is necessary to plot the fall distance against the square of the fall time. From the slope of
this line, the gravitational acceleration g can then be calculated.

3. EXPERIMENT

3.1. Experimental Apparatus and Method

3.1.1 List of Equipment

1 Free-fall apparatus

1 Digital counter

1 Ball, holding mechanism, cables etc.

3.1.2 Set-Up

• Connect the Free Fall Apparatus to the digital counter as shown in Fig. 1.

• Set the height of fall h = 950 mm.

• Power the counter, first press the RESET than GATE buttons.
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• Press the holding arm with the micromagnet downwards and suspend the ball from it.

Fig. 1: Experiment set-up for measuring the fall time of a steel ball as a function of the distance h
between the trigger mechanism and a target plate.

3.2. Experimental Procedure


• Start the free fall by pressing the release lever.

• When the ball hits the target plate, measure and record the fall time t.

• By sliding the release mechanism, reduce the fall height h in steps of 50 mm and determine the
fall time t in each case
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4. CALCULATIONS

Fill in the table below.

h (cm) t (s) t2/(s2)

60

50

40

30

20

Table 1: Measured values of the fall height h and fall time t

Calculate the correlation between fall times and fall heights for all measured values.

Plot the measurement results in a displacement / time diagram.

Linearisation by plotting the fall distance as a function of the square of the fall time.

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