Testing Friction

Rachel Conn
Morgan Toal
Cameron Schohn
Objectives

● Test friction and prove the friction equation to be true

○ Our question is: Will friction become a greater value as our masses pulling
the block become heavier?
● Experiment: test frictional force by using a pulley system to pull a variety of
masses across a smooth surface
 What Is Friction?

- Force that resists the sliding or rolling of one solid object over another
- Two types of friction: static and kinetic
- Static friction: what keeps the box from moving without being pushed
- Kinetic friction: the force that resists the relative movement of the surfaces once
they're in motion
- We will be testing kinetic friction

https://www.britannica.com/science/friction
Relevant Theory & Previous Research

● Net Force = (Ftension) + (-frictionk) = m(ax) → m is the mass on the table

- measure mass in real life, use tracker to find ax
● Ftension - m*g = m(ay) → both m’s are the hanging masses.
- Mg and m are independent
- Again use tracker to find ay
● We will use both of these equations to solve for Force of Friction
○ We first have to solve for the net force and then we will solve for tension to find the friction force.
Dependent & Independent Variables

● Dependent Variable:
- Force of friction
- This is dependent because this is what we are solving for.

● Independent Variable:
- Variety of masses
- 5 different masses total will be used to test frictional force
- 100g, 120g, 150g, 170g, 200g
Measuring & Controlling Variables
● The block will have the same mass throughout.
○ It also has a 100g mass on top, making it 447.5g.
● The only thing that will be changing for each trial is the mass added to the pulley
● Frictional force will be found using the equation:

Net force = Ftension - Ffriction = m(ax)

● Tension force will be found by using the equation:

Ftension - m*g = m(ay)

● We will measure the mass of the block

● Acceleration will be found by using tracker; then it will be used to find the tension force to
finally find the friction force
Example of Experiment - 200g mass
Synopsis of Data

● Above are a few of the values for acceleration in the x direction for each mass. These were found by
putting the videos in tracker, then by auto tracking each mass.
● We took the average of each masses acceleration to use for the net force equation.
100g Mass Tracker Data
120g Mass Tracker Data
150g Mass Tracker Data
170g Tracker Data
200g Tracker Data
Analysis

Steps to solving for friction

1. Solve for net force using the

mass on the table and the
acceleration in the x direction
a. Fnet=ma(x)
2. Solving for the tension force
using the masses hanging and
acceleration in the y direction.
a. Ft=ma(y)+mg
Analysis

Steps cont’d

3. Once we find the tension force

and the net force, we use those to
solve for friction force.

a. Fnet=Ft-Ff
Conclusion
With the data we found→

● Friction force does not get bigger as the masses get bigger, it ranges from .6
to 1.9
● Mass 1= .68417N
● Mass 2= 1.1672248 N
● Mass 3= .875565 N
● Mass 4= .905917 N
● Mass 5= 1.89516 N
● We tried to get rid of most of our human error by putting our video into
tracker.