Pendulum Experiment Lab Report

In this experiment, the objectives were to derive an equation for the tension in the string (which had a mass attached and was revolved in a vertical circle motion). In order to complete this, the velocity of the mass would have to be calculated using the measured tension, and this value would then be compared to the expected velocity. The second objective of this experiment was to observe how mass, velocity, and radius affect the tension of the string. These objectives were reached in this experiment. Before beginning the experiment, an equation had to be derived in order to calculate the velocity given the tensions of the string, the mass of the weight that the string would hold, and the radius of the string. The forces in the y direction …show more content…
(The m stands for mass, v stands for velocity, and the r represents the radius or length of the string.) Because the force of gravity is equal to the mass times the acceleration due to gravity, the left side of the equation will read T-mg and the right side of the equation will be (mv2 )/r. Therefore, the equation that will be used to calculate the velocity will be T-mg=(mv2 )/r. The other formula, which was given, which would be used to find the expected velocity of the pendulum is √(2g(l-lcosθ)), where l is the length of the string and g is the acceleration due to gravity (9.8 m/s2). Three sets of data were taken, and each set consisted of trails with three different angles: 25°, 30°, and 35°. For each of these angles, the tensions were measured using the SparkVue Application. For each respective angle, the tension was measured three times and the average of these three tensions was taken to use in the calculation to find the velocity. In the first set of data, the mass that was attached to the string was 0.050 kg and the length of the string (or the radius of the circle) was 0.505 meters