Physics Group Experimental Investigation

Short experimental investigation report on Lever and its

applications

Participants:

1. Abenezer Tesfaye

2. Girum Tesfaye

3. Esisha Lemma

4. Amanuel Abebe

5. Bizuayehu Nigatu

Submitted to: Mr. Ashenafi

Submitters: Students mentioned above.

Submission date: 15-08-2010 EC

2 3rd April, 2018

 DILLA KOFFE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 2018

Preface
As we all know, physics is one of the sciences in which we can observe nature and its whole
aspects. It is also major science, dealing with the fundamental constituents of the universe, the
forces they exert on one another, and the results produced by these forces. It relates to the laws of
symmetry and conservation, such as those pertaining to energy, momentum, charge, and parity.

The topic that we are going to investigate below; torque is one of the applications of physics
that is associated with the rotation of a body to which a force is applied, unlike the force that is
related to translation. Torque is the product of a force and the perpendicular distance to a turning
axis. For a body to be in rotational equilibrium, the sum of all torques exerted on it must be zero.

We constructed a lever arm and carried out experiments that led us to specific conclusion.
This module explains how lever works and states the aim, method, procedure and the final
conclusion of our work.

We all love to grant thanks for people who participated in this project in many different
aspects and our physics teacher (Mr. Ashenafi) who gave us this great opportunity to reveal
ourselves and to develop our potential through this spectacular deed. We will catch you in the
main topic, then till then see you. God bless you all.

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 Title: Lever arm and its applications.

 Objective: -To discuss the concept of torque within a lever arm.

-To show the turning effect of force (torque) within a lever arm.

-To establish the conditions for rotational equilibrium of a rigid body.

-To obtain the torque due to more than one force.

-To apply the conditions of equilibrium and illustrate the use of different
axes for calculating the net torque on an object.

 Theory: -Torque is the product of a force and the perpendicular distance to a

turning axis.

 This relationship mathematically can be represented by the following formula.

τ = Fd⊥ where τ is torque,

F is the force exerted to produce rotation,
d⊥ is perpendicular distance to the axis
of rotation.

-The second condition of equilibrium states that the summation of the

product of force and perpendicular distance from the axis of rotation
(=torque) clockwise and that of counter clockwise is zero.

-A system is in equilibrium when the two conditions of it are respected.

The first condition of equilibrium states that the summation of all forces
within their respective direction is zero. While the second condition of
equilibrium is when an object is in the state mentioned above.

-If either of the conditions is left disobeyed, the system is not

necessarily in equilibrium. There have to be both conditions so as to say
the system is necessarily in equilibrium.

 Apparatus: The tools that we used in our construction of lever were:

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 DILLA KOFFE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 2018

-Wood (different in size used as stands, fulcrum, both arms and base.)
-Copper wire (used to hang different masses on the lever arm.)
-Nails (used to fix the woods together in different joints.)
-Ball bearing (used as the axis of rotation to roll both arms of the lever.)
-Paintings (we used it to make the lever arm colorful and attractive.)

 The tools mentioned above are tools that we used to construct the lever. But those we use
while showing the investigation are:

-Weighing stones with different masses.

-Horizontal flat surface (we use this to place the lever on.)

 Procedure: Here are the steps we followed so as to carry out the experiment using the
apparatuses mentioned above.

i) We constructed the lever by using the above tools. Cutting the woods in different
shapes and sizes, two of these woods used as stand. These two woods are equal in
height (30 cm), width (2 cm) and length (6 cm). By placing these two woods
confronting each other at the distance of 6 cm, we riddled another cylindrical
wood with 50 cm long at the middle and put a ball bearing in it and pasted it by
glue. We use this wood as lever arm. Then we inserted the ball bearing and the
lever arm at the top of those two stands. Thin cylindrical wood connects the two
woods and the ball bearing. We put two small equal sized woods between those
stands at the bottom and pasted them with the stands by nails. Finally we made
rectangular prismatic base by using the remaining woods and nails and attached
it to the stands. The final pictorial depiction of our work looks like the figure
below the procedure.

ii) We place the lever on horizontal flat surface provided. This horizontality of the
surface will help us in minimizing the uncertainty due to lever rotation.

iii) We allocate the clockwise and the counterclockwise rotation of the arms of the
lever.

iv) We hang each weighing stone on the arms of the lever. We measure the first two
stones within equal mass and equal distance from the axis of rotation. The thing
that will happen is stated in the result below. We keep measuring within other
stones having equal masses.

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 DILLA KOFFE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 2018

v) We notice the effect of gravity. As a result, we observe that the force that makes
the lever to move is gravitational force. We modified our formula as follows;

τ = mgd⊥ where m stands for the masses of the stones.

g is an acceleration due to gravity.

 mg (the weight of the stones) is the only force that produces rotation

vi) This is all we need to precede our investigation. The result that we observed is
stated below.

Ball bearing
Clockwise direction

Arm of the lever

Counterclockwise direction

Stand

Weighing stone
Base

Figure 1.0 Lever Arm

 Result: So far we have been discussing on the preparation of the lever and the
experimental procedures that we followed. Now let us discuss the results that
we observed.

 When we hung two equally weighing

stones at equal distance from the axis on
both sides, we noticed the lever kept
horizontal without any inclination. This is
when the counterclockwise and the clockwise

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torque balanced out. There was no net torque to turn the arms at any direction. This is
where rotational equilibrium is.

 When we hung two weighing stones

with different masses at equal distance
from the axis, the one with greater mass
leaned and the other swung.

 When we suspended two equally weighing

stones at different distances from the axis,
the one which is near to the axis swung and
the other which hung further than the first
from the axis leaned.

Note: The inclination of the arms implies that there is greater torque at the point the lever
leaned than at the point it swung.

 If we suspend the two weighing stones with different masses at different distances from
the axis, there will be two things happened. The first one is that if we hang them
arbitrarily on the arm, the lever won’t be balanced. But to the second case, we need the
equation of torque to equate the torques between the arms.

 The mass of an object is inversely proportional to the distance from the axis. Keeping the
torque constant, as the mass increases the distance from the axis decreases.

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If τccw is the counterclockwise torque and τcw is clockwise torque, then

τ = mgd

τccw = τcw
m1gd1 = m2gd2

As m1 increases d1 decreases and this is true to the second case too.

From our readings, let us see one as an example.

We took a mass of 50 g and distance from the axis 10 cm on the left side of our lever arm.
To balance the lever on the right side of the lever, we took 125 g weighing stone and started
to search the distance that the lever would balance. Finally we came up on the distance of 4
cm from the right side of the axis. If we had known the calculation of torque before, we
wouldn’t have wandered so much. The torque calculation would give the following results.

If the lever is balanced, τccw = τcw which implies m1gd1 = m2gd2.

m1 = 50 g, d1 = 10 cm, m2 = 125 g, d2 = ?
Gravity is constant for both of the case. So let us get started the calculation.

m1gd1 = m2gd2
0.05kg*10m/s2*0.1 m = 0.125kg*10m/s2*d2
0.05Nm= 1.25Nd2
d2 = 0.04m which is equal to 4 cm.
This would be easier to understand and calculate.

 Uncertainty: There were uncertainties due to parallax and zero error in our readings.
This can be taken as an approximation to the true readings.

 Conclusion: Finally from these all, we could conclude that the turning effect of force,
torque, in rotational equilibrium the sum of all torques in the system is zero. This means
torque or moment of a force, MF, is a physical quantity associated with the tendency of a
force to produce rotation about any axis.

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 DILLA KOFFE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 2018

 Torque is a vector quantity, but, in this book, we will use it as a scalar, introducing a sign
convention that will allow us to add algebraically several torques due to the forces
applied on a body. The sign of torque is taken to be positive (+) if the force tends to
produce counterclockwise rotation and negative () if the force tends to produce clockwise
rotation about an axis.
 The effect of rotation depends on the magnitude of the applied force F and on the
distance d⊥ (perpendicular) to the axis of rotation. Torque is calculated by the product of
the magnitude of force by the distance (d⊥) from the line of action of force F to the axis
of rotation. The line of action is the straight line, imaginary, that determines the direction
of the force vector. The distance d⊥ is called the moment arm or the lever arm of the
force F. The segment that defines the lever arm is perpendicular to the line of action of
the force and passes through the axis of rotation.

2018, Dilla, Ethiopia

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