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Lab_Report_11

The lab focused on understanding torques and rotational equilibrium using a meterstick to balance weights. Two parts of the experiment involved calculating torques on either side of the meterstick, with results showing a 7.3% difference in the first part and a 1.2% difference in the second part, indicating varying accuracy. The experiment demonstrated how to achieve rotational equilibrium by balancing torques and highlighted the negligible effect of the meterstick's mass.

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2 views

Lab_Report_11

The lab focused on understanding torques and rotational equilibrium using a meterstick to balance weights. Two parts of the experiment involved calculating torques on either side of the meterstick, with results showing a 7.3% difference in the first part and a 1.2% difference in the second part, indicating varying accuracy. The experiment demonstrated how to achieve rotational equilibrium by balancing torques and highlighted the negligible effect of the meterstick's mass.

Uploaded by

mathmaster339
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lab 11 – Torques and Rotational Equilibrium: Approach

In this ninth lab assignment, we discussed torques and rotational equilibrium, and how to

obtain experimental values from a balanced meterstick. First a brief background.

Equilibrium on a rotating bady can only be achieved if the sum of all of the torques acting

on the body equals to zero, which means tht both side of a rotating bar must be acting in eqaul

magnitude but opposite direction. A tor que is a force-type measurement that acts on a rotating

body, which can be obtained by using the formula: T = F*r, where F is the applied force on the

object and r is the perpendicular distance from the pivot point, which can b seen as the radius of an

imaginary circle.

This lab assignment consists in comparing the torques acting on two sides of a balance

meterstick. In the whole experiment, we are given a weight that is to be added into the stick, and we

are to manually find the torque that balances this weight.

This makes up the apporach of our lab ssignement.

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Lab 11 – Torques and Rotational Equilibrium: Data

For the first part of the experiment, we were told to add a 100g weigth into the right
side of the meterstick using a 16g-hanger 45 cm away from the pivot point, and
were had to find the distance at which a 200g weight attached to a 25g-hanger
would balance out the previous torque, which was 25 cm away from the pivot point.
The calculation used to find the torques acting on the meterstick can be observed
in Table 1, and the percent difference between both of them in Equation 1.
Table 1 – Torques on each side: First Part

Equation 1 :
The second part of the experiment was the same, but this time we placed two
weights on the right side (100g weight on 16g-hanger 10 cm away and 100 g
weight on 24g-hanger 30 cm away), and we had to find the one weight that would
balnce the stick, which we found to be a 200g weight on a 25g-hanger 22cm away
from the pivot point. The calculations can be seen in Table 2, and the percent
difference between both sides in Equation 2.
Table 2 – Torques on each side: Second Part

Equation 2 :
Lab 11 – Torques and Rotational Equilibrium: Conclusions

This study source was downloaded by 100000782223870 from CourseHero.com on 03-31-2022 02:05:22 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/10342504/Lab-Report-11-Torques-an-Rotational-Equilibrium/
In this lab, I was able to learn how to properly calculate torques acting on a rotating
meterstick, and use it to the torques acting on each side of the meterstick to see how one
torque can alance out the torque on the other side.

In general, in the fisrt pasrt of the experiment I was able to see the simple
balancing of torques on two sides of a rotating object, and how these when applied
correctly let the object achieve rotational equilibrium. Thogh simple, after obtaining the
torques from both sides, we could see a 7.3% difference, which means some error could
be observed, perhaps due to a table that wasn’t completely horizontal.

In the second part, the torque system was made a bit more complicated by having
two torques applied to one side, but we found out that only one torque is actually needed
to balance the meterstick. The percent differenc seen in this experiment was only 1.2%,
which means our measurements were very accurate and we found the apprpriate torque to
balance out the other.

Personally, I found this lab assignment very simple and easy to perform, and found
the data to be quite useful to find the data I needed to make the report.

Questions

1. Why can you ignore the mass of the meterstick in this experiment?

It is assumed the mass of the meterstick is in complete equilibrium, and that


all of its mass is equally distributed across all of its shape. Therefore, its
mass is irrelevant because the added weights act on an object that was
previously balanced out.

This study source was downloaded by 100000782223870 from CourseHero.com on 03-31-2022 02:05:22 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/10342504/Lab-Report-11-Torques-an-Rotational-Equilibrium/
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