Alexander Reyes
Lab Partners: Mike flores & mike
Performed on: 9/21/16
Theory/Introduction: For this specific lab the coefficient of static and kinetic friction between a wooden block and a table will be calculated. There will be five different experiments performed. Experiment 1 will calculate coefficient of static friction, experiment 2 will calculate kinetic friction, experiment 3 static friction from a slopped surface, experiment 4 kinetic friction from sliding a block down an incline, and experiment 5 will be predicting the acceleration of a two mass system.
Apparatus/Experimental Procedure: Below is an image of the apparatus that was put together for all experiments. For Part 1, a wooden block was weighed to find its mass and a 50 gram hanging weight was hung over the table attached by a pulley. Masses were added to both the wooden block and the hanging mass for each trial run until the wooden block began to slide down. once the wooden block began to slide the weight of the hanging mass was recorded. For part 2, a force sensor was used in order to find the average force of a block while sliding horizontally. For each trial run more mass was added to the block and the process was repeated 4 separate times. For part 3, a block was placed on a horizontal surface. The surface was raised by one end until the block started to slip. The angle at which the block began to slip was calculated at 25 degrees. For part 4, a motion detector was used at the top of an incline to find the acceleration of a block going down. The angle 30 degrees and the mass of a block 178 grams was calculated. For part 5, the same apparatus was built as in part 1, but a motion sensor was used in order to find the acceleration of the block sliding down the table.
Part 1 Data: Static friction was calculated by plotting a graph of FsMax vs N.The slope of the graph calculated the coefficient of static friction which was found to be 0.4088.
Part 2 Data: The mean for each trial run was calculated and plotted. A Fk vs N graph was plotted, and the slope of the line was derived. The coefficient of kinetic friction was found to be. 2877.
Part 3 Data:After determining the angle at which the block begins to slide coefficient of static friction was calculate below(0.466)
Part 4 Data: Motion detector was used to find the acceleration of the wooden block sliding down a 30 degree angle incline. Calculation below determined the coefficient of kinetic friction 0.8837.
Part 5 Data: Using the coefficient of kinetic friction from part 4 the acceleration of a block was determined below. Acceleration found by motion sensor was .88 m/s^2 compared to the 1.13 m/s^2 acceleration calculated.
Conclusion:A total of 5 separate experiments were performed for modeling friction forces lab. For part 1, the coefficient of static friction between the table and the wooden block was calculated to be .4088. For part 2, .2877 was found to be the coefficient of kinetic friction. For part 3, the coefficient of static friction was calculated to be .466. For part 4, .8837 was calculated as the coefficient of kinetic friction. For part 5, the acceleration of the wooden block was calculated to be 1.13 m/s^2. Sources of error could have come from miscalculations in equations.








































