Vector Addition

Ms. Susana Alulod

PRESENTED BY:

1 Hoang Ngoc, Le Minh

Worakamon Napavorakul
2
Natthawan Jitsuparp
3
Chosiya Losuwonkul
4

Physics 11 - 1102
 OBJECTIVE

To find out or calculate the resultant and the equilibrant angle

by using Graphical method parallelogram and polygon.

Able to understand and apply Graphical method.

To find out the resultant and the equilibrant angle by using

force table.

INTRODUCTION

This experiment will illustrate the ideas of vector addition. All

measurement may be classified by scalar quantities and vector

quantities. Scalar quantities are represented by just a single

number. For instance, temperature, time, and energy. Otherwise,

vector quantities are described by a directional term. For

examples, velocity, acceleration, and force.

When two vector are added up, there would be the resultant

the sum of the two vectors and the equilibrant opposite

direction to the resultant, but have the same magnitude. The are

many ways to find the resultant of two vectors. The simplest ones

are to add, for vectors in same direction and subtract, for vectors

in opposite direction. However, for the vectors that are

perpendicular, we could use Pythagorean theorem to find the

resultant. Graphing is another way to find the resultant vector.

With two forces, we use parallelogram method. While for three

forces, we use polygon method.

In this experiment, vector addition will be illustrated by force

table which have different weights to find the equilibrant force

and the resultant.

MATERIALS

Force table

Weight Hanger

Rope

Pulley

Weight (100g, 50g, 20g, 10g)

SETUP
PROCEDURE
TWO FORCES

Set the materials by hanging the string on the force table

Hang the rope in each direction as instructed 30 and 45

degree

Put the 100g weight (represents magnitude) in both

direction

Hang the third rope representing the equilibrant force;

adjust its direction and weight so that all the forces are

equal

Determine the resultant force

Record the magnitude and direction of all forces in each

direction in data table

PROCEDURE
THREEFORCES

Set the materials by hanging the string on the force table

Hang the rope in each direction as instructed 30, 45, and

25 degree

Put the 100g weight (represents magnitude) in all direction

Hang the fourth rope representing the equilibrant force;

adjust its direction and weight so that all the forces are

equal

Determine the resultant force

Record the magnitude and direction of all forces in each

direction in data table

GRAPH

TWO FORCES - PARALLELOGRAM

THREE FORCES -POLYGON

 ANALYSIS OF RESULT

In the two forces experiment, the percent different in

magnitude according to the force table and the graphing of

parallelogram is 14.4%. While the percent different in direction is

0%.

In the three forces experiment, the percent different in

magnitude according to the force table and the graphing of

polygon is 28.57%. While the percent different in direction is

0.96%.

According to the data, the directions measured from both

experiment are quite accurate, however, the magnitude are quite

different from the graphing. This means that its harder to find the

direction of a force using force table then to find the magnitude.

These errors could be resulted by many factors: the weight that

hangs to the string moves or swings during the experiment;

mistakenly read the result.

CONCLUSION

Related to Newton's third law, there are forces that have the

same magnitude but opposite direction and also there is an equal

and opposite reaction. The final result in this experiment is the

equilibrant which can later be used to determined the resultant. It

is balanced using force table by moving only one force and varied

weight that act on it.

 RECOMMENDATION

In this lab experiment, we met many obstacles. For instance,

we had a hard time to make the forces equal and to find the

equilibrant force. Also there are some percent difference

between our experiment and graphing. We notice that we could

improve the way we do things in the next lab experiment to make

the result more accurate.

What we should do in the next lab?

1) Wait until the weight on the weight hanger become

completely unmoving before deciding that the ring is in the

middle because if the rope still swings, then the result might shift.

2) Use more varieties of weight to see if the force is still equal

or not since most of the error is resulted from the magnitude.

3) Read the result more carefully. Its hard to determine

whether the ring is in the middle or the force table or not, we

should use a ruler to measure and make sure that it is.

4) Measure the rope first so that we could be sure that they

have the same length.

 REFERENCES

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/vectors/Lesson-

3/Addition-of-Forces

WORKLOG

1. Hoang Ngoc, Le Minh

experiment,graphing, graphing in computer, objective,

material,recommendation

2. Worakamon Napavorakul
experiment, graphing,introduction,analysis of result,

recommendation

3. Natthawan Jitsuparp
experiment, graphing, procedure, conclusion,recommendation

4. Chosiya Losuwonkul
experiment, graphing, objective, procedure, analysis of

result,recommendation