PHYS 1P

Name: Score:
Course Code/Section: Date:

Activity No.:

FORCE TABLE
Objectives
• To familiarize with the features and uses of force table;
• To apply the concepts of resultant and equilibrant vectors; and
• To appreciate real-life applications of mechanical equilibrium.

Theory
A. Force Table
A force table, or sometimes referred to as force board,
is an equipment in the laboratory that has a circular plate
marked like a compass placed over a metallic stand. At least
three strings, with weights freely hanging at the end, are
attached to the movable ring located at the center of the
plate. Such weights represent forces understudy being
exerted along with different directions. The strings are
anchored on ideally frictionless pulleys as shown below.

B. Mechanical Equilibrium
Consider the ring where the strings are attached to as
a point particle being pulled by different forces in various
directions. The system is said to be in mechanical equilibrium Figure 1: Traditional Force Table
if the net force acting on the particle is zero. Say that the Source: https://www.unitedsci.com/product-
force table has three weights balancing the system, one catalog/force-table
weight among those three acts as equilibrant vector E. That
is, the imaginary force exactly opposite to the direction of
the equilibrant vector is called the resultant vector R. The
magnitude of R is equal to the magnitude of E. Hence,
⃑ = −E
R ⃑ eq. 1

Representing the two other forces as A and B,

⃑R = ⃑A + ⃑B eq. 2

Note that vector addition can be done using graphical and

analytic methods. Parallelogram and polygon methods are
under the former while the latter is composed of the law of
sine/cosine and component methods. This activity applies
these methods using the concept of a force table. Figure 2: PASCO Force Table

Materials
Force table with three (3) pulleys and strings
Set of weights

Force Table |pg. 1

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Figure 2: Materials – (a) Force table with three (3) pulleys with clamps, (b) a pulley with a string, and (c) set of weights.

Procedures
1. Mount the force table in such a way that the circular platform is horizontal.
2. Clamp three pulleys on the force table at random as shown in Figure 2a. Make sure that the strings pass
through each pulley.
3. Hang a mass on each of the two pulleys.
Denote the forces due to these masses as F1 and F2,
respectively. It can be observed that the plastic ring
(Figure 3) is not at the center of the force table.
4. To put the ring at the center, hang another
mass on the third string. Denote the force due to
this mass as F3.
Note that the main task is to apply three force
vectors on the ring to make it stable at the center.
These three vectors can be represented by the
weights to be hanged on each string.
Figure 3: The plastic ring at the center of the force table. a. By trial and error, hang several weights on each
string. Adjustments can be made by moving the
pulleys (with clamps) towards different directions (or angles) in the force table (Figure 4).
b. The hanging masses will produce tension in each string. These masses are directly proportional
to the gravitational force (to be discussed later in the course). The tension force in each string,
which is equal to the gravitational force, will be

(mass in kilograms) × (acceleration due to gravity in meters per second squared) = mg

where 𝑔 = 9.8 m⁄s 2 . The standard unit for force is newton (i.e., kg ∙ m⁄s 2 = N).

c. The direction of each tension force is given by the angle marking on the force table which a string
coincides with.

5. Record your data on Table A.

6. You can watch the video demonstration uploaded in Canvas.

Force Table |pg. 2

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*Use the photo below (Figure 5) as your source of data for Table 1.
These data were taken from an actual experiment conducted in the
FEU Physics Laboratory.
**Because of the way the photo was taken (I apologize), I decided to
measure the directional angles of the forces based on the shadows
projected by the strings.

Figure 4: Setup
10g

10g

50g

25g
20g ⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝐹3 at the 340° mark 25g

20g
20g
25g

Figure 5: Data Measurements

Data
A. Use the data shown in Figure 5 to complete the table below.

Force m (g) w (N) = mg θ (°)

F1

F2

F3

a. Solve for the resultant of ⃑⃑⃑

𝐹1 and 𝐹 ⃑⃑⃑⃑2 using the graphical method (parallelogram or polygon/head-
to-tail method). Assign this as ⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝑅𝐴 .

Force Table |pg. 3

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b. Solve for the resultant of ⃑⃑⃑

𝐹1 and ⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝐹2 using the analytical method (triangle trigonometry using sine
and cosine laws or component method). Assign this as ⃑⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝑅𝐵 .

Analysis
1. Solve for the percentage difference of the magnitude and direction of ⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝑅𝐴 and ⃑⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝑅𝐵 .
|𝑅𝐴 − 𝑅𝐵 |
%Difference of 𝑅𝐴 and 𝑅𝐵 = × 100%
𝑅𝐴 + 𝑅𝐵
( 2 )
|𝜃𝐴 − 𝜃𝐵 |
%Difference of 𝜃𝐴 and 𝜃𝐵 = × 100%
𝜃 +𝜃
( 𝐴 2 𝐵)

2. Compare ⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝑅𝐴 and ⃑⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝑅𝐵 with ⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝐹3 .

Force Table |pg. 4

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3. Solve for the resultant of the three forces ⃑⃑⃑

𝐹1 , ⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝐹2 and ⃑⃑⃑⃑
𝐹3 using any method. What does the resultant
⃑⃑⃑⃑
imply? What is the significance of the third force 𝐹3 in the system?

4. Based on the given data (Figure 5), what are the experimental and theoretical values of the
equilibrant? Solve for the percent error. Give three (3) possible sources of error.
|theoretical value − experimental value|
% Error = × 100%
theoretical value

5. What is equilibrium? What is an equilibrant? What is the difference between resultant and
equilibrant?

Conclusion

Force Table |pg. 5