Investigate how the height of drop affects the height of bounce.

PHYSICS COURSEWORK

AIM: -

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE: -

At rest the when the ball is above the surface it has Gravitational Potential Energy. When the ball is dropped the Gravitational Potential Energy is converted to Kinetic Energy. When the ball bounces back the kinetic energy changes back to Gravitational Potential Energy.
The ball does not return to it’s original height because some of the kinetic energy is lost and converted to other form of energies such as sound energy, elastic potential energy, thermal energy and friction. At the bottom, just before the bounce, this energy is now all in the form of kinetic energy. After the bounce, the ball and the ground or floor have absorbed some of that energy and have become warmer and have made a noise. When the ball hits the floor it exerts a force on the floor and the floor exerts a force on the ball. This force compresses the ball. But because the material the ball is made of is not perfectly elastic, internal friction converts some of the energy into thermal energy. The elastic potential energy stored in the ball when it has lost all its kinetic energy is converted back into kinetic and gravitational potential energy. The thermal energy, however, is not converted back.
The factors that effect the height of the bounce are: -

PREDICTION: -

According to the chosen factor the higher the height at which the ball is dropped from, the higher it will bounce back. This is because as the ball travels down, it has more gravitational potential energy and more time to gather speed if dropped from a higher height due to the acceleration of gravity and this will increase the height at which the ball bounces back up as the ball will bounce up ...