During this coursework practical, we aim to study the behaviour of water waves at various depths of water.

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Jakub Figurski 5A

GCSE PHYSICS COURSEWORK

1. PLANNING

AIM

          During this coursework practical, we aim to study the behaviour of water waves at various depths of water.

METHOD

          Firstly, a plastic tank is obtained and its length is measured and recorded.  0.5cm depth of water is poured into it; this depth is measured using a wooden metre rule, vertically positioned resting on the bottom of the tank. One end of the tank is lifted up and is then dropped. This causes a ripple (wave) of water travelling across the water surface to be seen. The time taken for the ripple to get from one end of the tank to the other is timed using an electronic stopwatch (i.e. from one ‘bounce’ to the next). This is repeated twice more for the 0.5cm depth of water. Then the whole process is repeated with different depths: 1.0cm, 2.0cm, 2.5cm, 3.0cm and 4.0cm, again all tested thrice each. Averages of the results collected are taken to level out any anomalies, the results are analysed to investigate the behaviour of water waves at various depths of water, and the speed is calculated for each water depth (speed = distance ÷ time).

DIAGRAM

PRELIMINARY WORK

          Before the real coursework experiment, some preliminary investigations were conducted. We experimented with the tank being filled with just one particular water depth, to try to work out if the wave (ripple) we caused would travel at a steady speed or not (using a stopwatch). We lifted one end of the tank up to any reasonable height and promptly dropped it, thus causing a visible ripple (wave) to travel across the water. These were the results obtained:

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This set of results successfully confirms that the water wave does travel at a constant speed, because the distance of the tank clearly stays the same throughout, and the time taken for the wave to travel this certain distance stays constant (as, for example, the time taken for one ripple bounce is equal to half the time taken for two ripple bounces) so therefore the speed (which is distance ÷ time) must also stay steady. So the distance-time graph representing these results would be a straight line passing through the origin (see below), thus indicating steady speed. This preliminary ...

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