Hooke's Law Spring Constant
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ice_PLHooke's Law Spring Constant
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ice_PLHooke's Law spring constant
http://www.4physics.com/phy_demo/HookesLaw/HookesLawLab.html
A Hooke's Law Spring
Determine the Spring Constant
Hooke's Law states that the restoring force of a spring is directly proportional to a small displacement. In equation form, we write
F = -kx
where x is the size of the displacement. The proportionality constant k is specific for each spring. The object of this virtual lab is to determine the spring constant k. Displacement is measured in centimeters. Each of the blue weights has a mass of 50 grams. The gray virtual weight hanger has no mass. Snapshots of the lab are found in the four figures that follow.
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1/04/2012 3:37 PM
Hooke's Law spring constant
http://www.4physics.com/phy_demo/HookesLaw/HookesLawLab.html
50 grams mass is 2 cm displacement.
100 grams mass is 4 cm displacement.
150 grams mass is 6 cm displacement.
200 grams mass is 8 cm displacement.
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1/04/2012 3:37 PM
Hooke's Law spring constant
http://www.4physics.com/phy_demo/HookesLaw/HookesLawLab.html
Mass (grams) 50 100 150 200
Displacement (cm) 2 4 6 8
These data have been entered into the table to the left. For each snapshot above the downward pull of gravity is balanced by the upward pull of the spring. A force or free-body diagram of this is shown on the right-hand side. Note that the restoring spring force is given by Hooke's Law as kx.
This equilibrium can be expressed as
W = kx.
W is the weight of the added mass. Therefore, the spring constant k is the slope of the straight line W versus x plot. Weight (dynes) 49000 98000 Data from this table are plotted on the graph below. Note that the points fall precisely on the line since this is a virtual experiment. 147000 196000 Displacement (cm) 2 4 6 8
Weight is mass times the acceleration of gravity or W = mg where g is about 980 cm/sec . Using this relationship weights are computed for the masses in the table above. The results are on the right.
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Standard non-virtual lab data will be scattered a bit. Just spot the best straight line fit and draw the line in with a ruler (or run a linear least squares calculation).
As stated above the relationship depicted on the graph is W = kx where k is the spring constant. Therefore, the spring constant is the slope of the line.
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1/04/2012 3:37 PM
Hooke's Law spring constant
http://www.4physics.com/phy_demo/HookesLaw/HookesLawLab.html
Slope of a line is commonly defined as the rise over the run. This is figured in the final plot of W versus x. Thus, the spring constant of the virtual spring is 24,000 dynes/cm.
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