Experiment 8: Ballistic Pendulum

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Experiment 8: Ballistic Pendulum Physics 1408-C1 10/23/2012 Abstract: This experiment explored the conservation of energy and conservation of momentum of a totally inelastic collision. We accomplished this by using a ballistic pendulum. With this device, a bullet is fired into a wooden block suspended as a pendulum, embeds itself in the block and causes the combined block-bullet system to swing to a particular angle. This angle was smaller during the short range setting (29.0 o) and larger during the medium range setting (45.6 o). In addition, the initial and final velocities due to the short range setting were smaller in comparison to the initial and final velocities due to the short range setting. Since no external forces are acting at the instant of the collision, momentum for these inelastic collisions is conserved. However, the kinetic energy loss was almost the same for both settings-96.1% for short range, 99.2% for long range). This is because kinetic energy is not conserved in inelastic collisions. Discussion: In this experiment, a spring trigger launches a steel ball, acquiring a certain initial velocity. Then the ball collides with a wooden block, and together they reach a specific angel at height (Δh), called the angle indicator, and a final velocity. Our angle indicator reading was 0 degrees when the pendulum was hanging freely. Because of this, the maximum angel found from the collisions is easier to calculate, since we do not need to subtract the amount the pendulum is off from 0 degrees. After finding the initial estimate of the maximum angle, we loaded the launcher again and set the angle indicator to 3 degrees less than the angle reached in the previous step. This angle, known as the corrected angle is a more accurate measurement because it eliminates the drag on the pendulum caused by the indicator itself. We used this more accurate

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