Liam Kelly
How The Thickness Of A Wire Effects The Wires Resistance
Key Factors
1.Temperature: If the wire is heated up the atoms in the wire will start to vibrate because of their increase in energy. This causes more collisions between the electrons and the atoms as the atoms are moving into the path of the electrons. This increase in collisions means that there will be an increase in resistance. For the temperature of the wire I would not be able to carry out a fair test because it is extremely difficult to produce and control the range of temperatures needed without the correct equipment.
2.Material: The type of material will affect the amount of free electrons, which are able to flow through the wire. The number of electrons depends on the amount of electrons in the outer energy shell of the atoms, so if there are more or larger atoms then there must be more electrons available. If the material has a high number of atoms there will be high number of electrons causing a lower resistance because of the increase in the number of electrons. Also if the atoms in the material are closely packed then the electrons will have more frequent collisions and the resistance will increase. If I chose to measure the difference in the resistance in different materials I would chose a number of different materials and using the same voltage I would record the resistance given by each wire of the same length and width. The graphs that could be drawn would not show any connection between the material and the resistance because of the limited number of materials I could test with the equipment available.
3.Wire length: If the length of the wire is increased then the resistance will also increase as the electrons will have a longer distance to travel and so more collisions will occur. Due to this the length increase should be proportional to the resistance increase. To measure and record the findings for this factor would be simple and the results collected could show a connection between the length of the wire and the resistance given by the wire. To measure the wire width I would use different widths of the same length and same material of wire e.g. thin, medium and thick wire.
4.Wire width: If the wires width is increased the resistance will decrease. This is because of the increase in the space for the electrons to travel through. Due to this increased space between the atoms there should be less collisions. To record the difference in widths I would use the same voltage and measure the resistance for each thickness. It would be easy to obtain and record the data. This is why I am going to investigate this factor.
