Report of experiment

E04: LAWS OF COLLISION WITH AIR TRACK

Name:
Group:
Colleague:
Date of experiment:
I. Purpose:
- Laws in elastic collision and inelastic collision (through centre cases only)
- Practise using equipments: light barrier, air track, weight balance (digital),…
- Work with graph
II. Theory:
Consider the collision of two masses: m1 and m 2. Assume that the velocities just before
and after the collision are v1 ; v 1 ’ , v 2 ’ respectively.
Apply the conservation of momentum:
m1 v 1=m 1 v '1+ m2 v '2 ( p1= p'1 + p'2 ) (1)

In elastic collision, kinetic energy is conserved:

1 1 1
m1 v 21= m1 v 21 + m2 v 22 ( 2 )
2 2 2

Combine (1) and (2) we can obtain v'1 ; v '2 .

In inelastic collision, after collision, two masses are sticked and have the same velocity.
In this case, we can define the energy loss:
Q=E i−E f

III. Procedures:
1. Tasks:
a. Set up the experiment following Fig 2
b. Test again the law of momentum and the conservation of kinetic energy in
elastic collision.
c. Test again the law of momentum and find the energy loss in the inelastic
collision.
d. Draw the theoretical and experimental graphs: p1’/p1; p2’/p1 in term of
m1/m2. Find something which is relevant.
2. Procedures:
In this experiment, you need to do 2 main measurements:
- Measure mass of objects by using Portable balance, CS2000.
- Measure the speed of objects just before and after the collision through measuring shade
time of each object.
2.1 Elastic collision:
Step1: measure the mass of m1 and m2.
Step 2: set up the experiment following the Fig 2.
Step 3: provide the initial speed for m1 by using starter system.
Step 4: measure the shade time in each light barrier to calculate the speed of m1; m2 just
before and after collision
2.2 Inelastic collision
For inelastic collision, you freely choose the ratio of m1/m2.
Change the part for inelastic collision instead of elastic system
IV. Results and data analysis:
1. Elastic collision

m1 t1 v1 '
t1
'
v1 m2 '
t2 v2
'

2. Inelastic collision

Number p1 '
p1
'
p2
' '
( p1 + p2)/ p1

V. Questions