The purpose for this lab is to see if the energy within a spring system is conserved or not; however, for this lab the spring's mass is no longer negligible.
Experiment
For this lab we used a spring hanging from a force sensor which is attached to a rod on one end and a hanging mass on the other end of the spring. The whole system was attached to the side of a table with a clamp and also with a motion detector below it.
Before we began the experiment as a class we came up with what energies were in the system, as well as derived how we were able to find those energies. The energies that we found in the system were elastic potential energy, gravitational potential energy of the mass, kinetic energy of the mass, gravitational potential energy of the spring, and kinetic energy of the spring.
Once we found have figured out what energies we are trying to find we can then begin the experiment. We first find the spring constant of our spring with the force sensor by pulling the spring and finding the slope of the force vs position graph. The reason we need to find the spring constant is because it will be needed for finding the elastic potential energy. Once we have found the spring constant we conduct the experiment by hanging a mass at the end of the spring and letting it oscillate.
We then take the data we collected from logger pro and make new calculated column for each of the energies that are in the system with an additional column for the total energy of the system. Once all the energies have been calculated we then graph them all on the y-axis against time.
The reason we graph all the energies together is because it gives us a better picture to see if energy is conserved in the system and in this case it was. One reason we know this for example is because through conservation of energy we know that the as the mass fall the gravitational potential energy becomes elastic potential energy. Meaning that as the mass fell the gravitational potential energy decreases and becomes elastic potential energy which means it the elastic potential energy increases. The graph shows this relationship very clearly as one dips the other peaks. Another reason we know that energy is conserved is because if we look at the total energy we can see that the oscillation is constant and that no energy is gained or lost.
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