Scribd
Upload
4 views3 pages

Spring Constant Lab

The Spring Constant Lab involved measuring the displacement of two springs with varying tightness as weights were added, aiming to determine the relationship between spring constant and displacement. Results showed that the tighter spring had a smaller elongation compared to the looser spring, indicating that the spring force is dependent on the specific spring's constant. The experiment concluded with a linear relationship for each spring, revealing that the tighter spring had a higher spring constant value.

Uploaded by

Patrick Ajaka
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
4 views3 pages

Spring Constant Lab

The Spring Constant Lab involved measuring the displacement of two springs with varying tightness as weights were added, aiming to determine the relationship between spring constant and displacement. Results showed that the tighter spring had a smaller elongation compared to the looser spring, indicating that the spring force is dependent on the specific spring's constant. The experiment concluded with a linear relationship for each spring, revealing that the tighter spring had a higher spring constant value.

Uploaded by

Patrick Ajaka
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
You are on page 1/ 3

Andrew Ajaka

Mr. Duncan
AP Physics- Periods 5 and 6
Due: Thursday, February 16th, 2017

Spring Constant Lab

To start off this lab, we took an apparatus that held two different springs, one which

seemed to be tighter then the other, and had a meter stick which was put between the springs so

that we could measure its displacement. We then took 200 gram masses and attached them to the

spring by a hook that was attached to the weights. We looked at where the spring landed on the

meter stick relative to it’s initial position and added another weight, going up to a total of 1000

grams of added mass on each spring.

The reason that we were adding weight was due to the fact that we wanted to test whether

there was any relationship between what we initially called the tightness of the spring and its

displacement with a certain amount of added mass, even though now, with the clarity of

hindsight, we know that what we were actually trying to find was the spring constant for each of

the springs while also identifying the relationship between the spring constant and the spring’s

subsequent displacement with the same amount of spring force being applied on each spring.

After going through each of our different weight trials with each of the springs and

measuring the displacement that the spring made from it’s original position, in which it is neither

stretched nor compressed, we noticed that, as per our original predictions, the spring that looked

tighter seemed to be increasing by a smaller amount then the spring that was obviously looser,

with the more tense one only increasing by about .03 meters and the less tense one increasing by

a little over double that with each weight, as can be seen in the chart to the left. . This was

important because this would tell us that the spring force was dependent on some variable factor

depending on which spring you’re using, which we later learned was the specific spring’s spring
constant, k. We knew that the spring force would be equal to the force due to gravity of the

masses attached to the spring due to the fact that Newton’s third law states that when an object

applies a force to another object, the separate object is applying a force equal in magnitude right

back on it, but in the opposite direction. Since the force due to gravity of the weights is being

balanced by the spring, that must mean that the spring is applying a force equal in magnitude to

that of the weights force due to gravity. In order to calculate the force due to gravity, we took the

total mass we were putting on the spring and multiplied it by the acceleration due to gravity,

m
which is approximately 10 2 , as shown to the left. We then took this information and made it
s

into a chart (below), which we would use to

graph, as it would categorize our information

Spring Force Elongation of Elongation


less stiff of Stiffer
spring spring
2 Newtons 0.075 meters 0.05 meters

4 Newtons 0.15 meters 0.09 meters into an x-y relationship, making graphing

easier. We thought it would be best to graph it


6 Newtons 0.21 meters 0.17 meters
on the same axis in order to get a visual
8 Newtons 0.295 meters 0.18 meters
understanding of the relationship between the

10 Newtons 0.365 meters 0.225 meters spring force it’s subsequent elongation with

different values. We ended up with a linear

relationship for each spring, however their slopes seemed to be different. We were able to

kg
conclude that, each spring had a constant value that could be expressed in units of 2 , and the
s

tighter the spring was when it was in it’s unaltered position, the greater this constant was. The
kg kg
slope for our initially tighter spring was 40 2 , while the slope of our looser spring was 26.67 2
s s

, as shown to the right.

12 Different Spring's Elongations when Exerting the Same Force

10

8
Spring Force (Newtons)

Stiffer Spring
6 Linear (Stiffer Spring)
Looser Spring
Linear (Looser Spring )
4

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4

Elongation (Meters)

You might also like