An-Najah National University

Engineering College
Civil Engineering Department
Construction Materials Lab

Exp. No. : 1
Exp. Name : Equilibrium of Forces
Prepared by: Rania Mohammed Sabbah , Ola Hinawi
Neveen Abu Al-Rob ,Aya
Submitted to : Lama Asmah
Section: Wednesday ( 10-12)
Introduction:
In this experiment we will learn more about the equilibrium of forces in vertical plane, and we will consider
two equations of equilibrium, and we will learn how to set a system of forces in equilibrium condition by
simply changing the weights carried by strings and the angles between those strings experimentally. And
here a very short review of Newton's first law, first law of equilibrium and vectors.
A force is the push or pull that one object exerts on another. The essential
properties of force are summarized in Newton's three laws of motion
.
Newton’s first law states that an object at rest, or moving with constant motion, will remain at rest, or
moving at constant motion unless acted upon by an external force. One
consequence of Newton's first law is that if an object is at rest, the total
force on it must be zero.

First Law of Equilibrium:

A set of forces acting on a body will hold that body in equilibrium provided the vector sum of those forces
adds to zero, i.e., provided the vectors representing the forces form a closed polygon when placed head to
tail.
Any two vectors (as shown in figure (a) below) may be added by the so-called "Parallelogram Law" to form
one resultant vector (figure (b)). Thus, for equilibrium to exist, the third vector must be equal (in
magnitude), opposite (in direction) and collinear to this resultant (figure (c)).

(a) ( b) (c)

Three forces that add to zero must form a closed triangle. (When three forces are parallel, the triangle collapses to a
straight line.) (figure (d)).

This experiment is important for us ,because we learned theoretically the laws of equilibrium and when we did the
experiment by our hands ,this improved our understanding of equilibrium.
Objectives:
For an object to be in equilibrium, two conditions must be met. The first condition is that the sum of all
forces acting on the object must equal zero. The second condition is that the sum of all torques acting on the object
must be zero. The objective of this lab is to test the first condition of equilibrium for the case of a set of concurrent,
coplanar forces acting on a single object.

THEORY:
The purpose of this experiment is to verify Newton's First Law and to study the equilibrium of a set of forces acting in
a vertical plane, as applied to a stationary

body acted upon by concurrent forces

Newton's First Law states that when a body is in equilibrium, the vector sum of all forces

acting on the body is zero

∑F =0 )1(

Because the forces are concurrent the sum of moments is by default zero so we end up with two equations of
equilibrium in two dimentions.

In a two-dimensional case, this vector equation is equivalent to two scalar equations:

∑Fx=0

∑ Fy=0 )2(

Equation (1) may be verified graphically by adding all force vectors together by the

polygon method. In the absence of experimental error, the polygon closes

A further consequence of equation (1) is the fact that the magnitude of the vector sum of

any combination of forces acting on the body in equilibrium is equal to the magnitude of

the vector sum of all of the remaining forces.

The main piece of apparatus for this experiment is a force table, that is, a vertical plane

Pulleys may be clamped to the edge of the plane at any desired position.

Strings, connected to a ring at the center of the board, pass over the pulleys.

To provide the forces in equilibrium, standard masses are hung from the ends of

the strings. The forces acting on the ring are the tensions in the strings. When the ring is

in equilibrium, each tension is equal to the weight, mg, of the masses hanging from the string.
Procedure and Device :
Examine the board with the pulleys.

The device is a vertical board consist of: pulleys, a ring, strings, hangers and different loads see the picture below:

Put the clean sheet drawing paper its place at the center

Attach the load cord assemblies

Place the ring cord at the center (temporarily)

Add the load hanger to each free end (if it wasn't already there)

Add loads gently till you obtain the condition of equilibrium(when the nail is at the center of the ring or when the
central ring is stationary and near the centre of the board).

Use a pencil to transfer the line of action of forces(strings) to the sheet paper

Carefully remove the paper and use the results to do the needed calculations

Here’s picture of how a typical setup looks:

Data collection :
In our experiment the forces (from the device) were F1=1.5 N , F2=2.4N , F3=1.1N, F4=0.6 N .and the angles θ1=90,
θ2=-35, θ3=145 ,θ4=215(experimental values).

Every 1cm one the sheet represents 0.2 N

Analysis:
In our experiment we used a device which is a force board consisting of a vertical board with a ring at the middle
this ring is tied with a strings each string carry a tensile force that can be calculated easily by summing up the loads
hanged at each hanger at the end of the strings ,The pulleys redirect the forces so that four forces pull on the central
ring in different directions. Knowing the directions will let you calculate the x- and the y-components of the forces.
see the figure below :

We put different loads at each string until the ring was exactly at the middle and there we have the condition of
equilibrium and the equations of equilibrium are satisfied, because the forces we have are concurrent forces we
have just two equations of equilibrium instead of three :

∑Fx=0

∑Fy=0

In our experiment the forces were F1=1.5 N , F2=2.4N , F3=1.1N, F4=0.6 N .and the angles θ1=90, θ2=-35, θ3=145
,θ4=215(experimental values).

Σ Fx=1.5cos90+2.4cos35-1.1cos35-.6cos35=? 0

=.57 not = 0 (because of the sources of errors we will discuss lately)

ΣFy=1.5sin90+.6sin35-2.4sin35-1.1sin35=?0

=-.163 not=0(because of the sources of errors we will discuss lately)

To get the theoretical value we assume that the forces obtained were correct except for F4 and the angles measured
were correct except for θ4.

by setting Σ Fx=0 and ΣFy=0

we get the theoretical value of F4 =1.12 and θ4=26.56.

hence the percent of error in magnitude =(|F4from device-F4theo|\F4theo)*100%=46.2%

and the percent of error in direction=(|θ4from device-θ4theo|\θ4theo)*100%=31.78%

Graphically:

We draw the four forces and they should form a closed polygon look at the figure but because of the high percent of
error we had in our experiment it wasn't closed . we measure the graphical value of F4 by closing the unclosed
polygon and by using the scale of 0.2N→1cm we had a length of 5.896cm=1.179N. we had a percent of error equal
to 49.1% since F4 graphically was 1.179 N for magnitude and 40% for direction . and the value from device was .6 N
and we know that the percent of error is equal to |exp-theo.|\theo. *100%.and that is a bigger percent of error than
the percent we obtained theoretically that was because of errors in drawing and measuring and other human errors
the paper we got from the device is also attached.

1cm stands for 0.2 N

Specification :
The specification for error in this experiment as follows:

1. If % of error ≤ 5% then it's an acceptable error.

.
2. If 5%≤ % of error ≤ 15% Then the device of experiment needs a calibration.

3. If 15% <%of error then the device is defected.

Discussion:
In this experiment we learned how to set a system of different weights into equilibrium by changing the
angles and the weights in each string (experimentally) and by equations of equilibrium (theoretically) and
by drawing a force polygon(graphically). From the analysis we noticed that the percent of error was high
(about46.2% in magnitude and 31.78% in direction) that is because of the sources of errors were in this
experiment. the sources are mentioned in the next head line . now I'm going to discuss some of them :one
reason for the high error ; was that the pulleys do have a friction but in our calculations we didn't consider
this friction. The tensile force each string exerts on the ring should be equal to the weight (mg)-the
friction from the pulley .another source of error was that we assumed all our forces to be coplanar
forces(acts at the same plane) but this wasn't satisfied 100% .that means that there are z components for
the forces and we didn't consider a third equation in our calculations . The ring was certainly at rest – it
really was at equilibrium. The question is, was the sum of forces equal to zero? There are two issues
here. One is whether or not we included every force in our calculations. The other is, even if we did
include all the forces, what does “equal to zero” mean in this context? That sounds like a silly question,
but it really is at the heart of laboratory work. There is a limit as to how precise a measurement you can
make. This means that there is a limit to how precise your calculations can be. The specifications say that if
the percent of error was higher than 15% then the device is defected. How true is this?...

Sources of errors :
1. The smallest weight available was 0.1 we should have smaller weights.
2. The forces weren't exactly(100%) coplanar(lines of action of the forces lie at the same plane).
3. The friction in the pulleys.
4. Mistakes in marking the string position(human errors).
5. The wear and elongation happened in the strings used.

Question: .
Was the sum of forces in this experiment equal to zero? Please explain your answer scientifically ?

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