Temperature and Coefficient of Restitution of a Ping Pong Ball

Physics Lab Report

Josef Bloggs

Introduction

The pressure in a ping pong ball varies with pressure. We assume the plastic to be stiff
enough such that it will not stretch significantly within the range of temperatures tested. If
this is a fair assumption, then the volume is fixed. According to the Gay-Lussac law, Pressure
is directly proportional to Temperature at a constant volume. [B]

The pressure in the ball will rise with temperature and so the behaviour of the ball will differ
with a change in Temperature.

Our question is “How does the coefficient of restitution depend on the internal temperature of
a pingpong ball?”

The coefficient of restitution, e, is a ratio the velocity of the ball immediately after (vf), to
before (vi) a bounce as follows: [A,D]

|v f|
e=
|v i|
We can use the equation v 2=u2 +2 ah to find the velocities of the ball from the bounce height
and the drop height respectively (u = 0). Since the velocity is zero at the drop or bounce apex,
this simplifies the equation for coefficient of restitution to

e=
√ hf
√ hi
Where hf is the height of the bounce and hi is the drop height [D]

Independent Variable:

Temperature of the ball, measured with a thermometer and range -12°C to 72°C, with
resolution 1°C.

Dependent Variable:

Coefficient of Restitution, derived from measuring drop and bounce height with a meter
ruler, with resolution 1mm. The bounce height is established by a 240 fps slow motion
camera and a clear meter ruler very close behind the ball.
Control Variables:

Same ball Different balls fall under a tolerance of accepted mass, internal
volume, stiffness etc. Different balls behave differently and cannot be
compared
Drop height The effect of air resistance cannot be ignored, but it can at least be
maintained as consistent as possible for the ball prior to the bounce.
Bounce heights are expected to be close together meaning the affect
of it is consistent enough to be insignificant if drop height is
consistent
Position of camera The parallax error from the measurement technique is difficult to
mitigate. Using the same camera position will keep the error
consistent across experiments.
Bounce surface The surface the ball bounces on must be the exact same spot. A circle
will be marked on the ground to indicate the landing area. Balls
outside of this are disregarded.
Wind or air flow Air condition, Windows and doors must be shut to minimize air flow
in the room.

Method:

Apparatus: Autoclave Oven,

freezer, thermometer, pingpong
ball, meter ruler, 2 retort stand or
tripod, iPhone camera. Ball
dropper (cylinder with card slit).

1. Set the camera up on a tripod

stand 5.0m from the wall.
2. Set the ball dropper on a
retort stand very close to the
wall.
3. Stick a meter ruler against the
wall with the base on the
ground. Figure 1: Schematic of Experimental Setup
4. Set the dropper cylinder with
a piece of card in the stand such that pulling the card out will drop the ball consistently
at 1.000m
5. Eyeball the height of the bounce and set the camera to this height to minimize parallax
error.
6. Record every drop with the slow-motion camera, being sure the focus is set to the ruler.
Use the slow-motion footage to pause at apex and read off the maximum height of the
bottom of the ball.

Recording data:

7. Leave the ping pong ball in the fridge set at -12°C for 20 minutes. Remove the ball, place
in the cylinder and drop it. Replace and repeat 10 for each temperature.
8. Repeat with the ball in the fridge set at 2°C and 12°C.
9. Set the autoclave to the desired temperature and repeat step 7. The temperatures used
will be 22, 32, 42, 52, 62 and 72°C.

Risk assessment:

Hazard Risk Precaution

Camera topple Damage to equipment, Ensure the tripod is stable on a flat ground.
injury
Burn or freeze- Injury to hands Use gloves when handling the ball in the autoclave
burn

Results:

Raw Data:

Recoil bounce height (HA) in (cm) ±0.2 cm

Temperatur
e (°C) ±0.5
Mea
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
n
-12.0 71.2 70.6 72.1 69.8 71.3 70.3 71.6 70.1 73.0 72.6 71.5
22.0 66.2 66.4 67.0 65.9 66.8 66.5 67.3 65.8 66.3 66.7 66.5
32.0 65.6 65.3 64.9 65.7 64.4 64.5 65.3 65.1 65.9 65.7 65.2
42.0 63.7 63.9 64.5 64.6 64.1 63.9 64.8 64.9 65.1 64.9 64.4
52.0 63.1 62.4 63.7 63.6 63.4 62.7 62.9 63.5 63.3 62.7 63.1
62.0 62.5 62.9 63.4 61.6 61.3 62.7 62.4 63.1 63.2 61.8 62.5
72.0 62.1 60.8 61.4 61.2 61.7 60.5 60.8 62.4 61.5 61.3 61.4

Processed Data:

Temperature (K) ±0.5 e Δh_f (m) % uncert in h Δ e

261 0.846 0.016 2.2 0.009
295 0.815 0.0075 1.1 0.005
305 0.807 0.0075 1.2 0.005
315 0.802 0.0070 1.1 0.004
325 0.794 0.0065 1.0 0.004
335 0.791 0.011 1.7 0.007
345 0.784 0.0095 1.5 0.006
The absolute uncertainty in recoil height was found with the following formula: [C]

range
Δ hf =±
2

The percentage uncertainty in h was therefore found as [B]

Δh
% uncertainty= ∗100
h

Since e ∝ √ h, the percentage uncertainty on e is half that on h. So absolute uncertainty of e

was found with

1
Δe= ∗( % uncertainty of h )∗e
2
Conclusion:

There is a linear negative correlation between coefficient of restitution and Temperature. As

the ball increased in temperature, the coefficient of restitution reduced.

This may have been due to the softening of the plastic material, which caused energy loss as
the deformation became more and more plastic in nature rather than elastic.

The Gradient of the line was -7.06 x 104 K-1 and the percentage uncertainty was given by [C]

|best−worst|
% uncertainty ∈ gradient=± x 100
best

The worst fit line had a gradient -6.24 x 10-4 K-1.

The % uncertainty in the gradient was ±11.7 %

Interestingly, the y-intercept of the best fit line suggests that at absolute-zero, the
coefficient of restitution is greater that 1. This is not possible as energy would be created
from impact and added to the ball. This casts some small doubt on the linear behaviour of
the correlation, but within the range of temperatures investigated, the linear assessment
stands up to scrutiny.

Evaluation:

The experiment yielded very consistent results. This is shown by the small range in bounce
heights at each temperature. This means the control variables were managed well, so the
conditions were consistent. The experiment was repeatable and reliable.

The precision of the instruments was good enough, given that 1/260 was the biggest
percentage uncertainty in the temperatures.

There was uncertainty in establishing the bounce height, but this was minimized by several
measures:

 Increasing the bounce heights reduced the percentage uncertainties

 Moving the camera as far away as possible without losing the ability to read the scale
minimized parallax
 Leaving the ball in the oven for 10 minutes gave enough time for the internal
temperature to acclimatize to the ambient temperature in the autoclave.

Sources of error and improvements included:

 The internal temperature of the ball; more time would have helped this be more
accurate
 The internal temperature gradient in the autoclave; we cannot assume it was
consistent throughout
  The heating or cooling of the ball when removing from the fridge or oven
respectively; to do this faster or use a more insulating ball material would improve
this.
 Uncertainty on the ruler scale; the precision was 1mm, which was much smaller than
the error introduced from the parallax and so can be disregarded.
 A larger bounce height would reduce the fractional uncertainty, but also introduces
more speed and thus more air resistance.
 Air resistance would have affected the speed of the ball significantly, which is why
the data curves slightly. A smaller, heavier ball would reduce the relative effect of air
resistance and thus the percentage error introduced by this.

References:

[A] - http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Kinetic/idegas.html - accessed on 8th

March 2021. Author Prof. R. Nave

[B] – AQA Physics A Level 2nd Edition, Jim Breithaupt. Oxford publishers, 2016. P320-330

[C] – Physics for the IB Diploma, 6th ed. Cambridge University Press – K. A. Tsokos p 256.

[D] – Coefficient of Resititution of Sports balls: A normal Drop Test - Adli Haron and K A
Ismail 2012 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 36 012038