Investigation into the effects of temperature on a squash ball.

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Investigation into the effects of temperature on a squash ball.

Josh fear                                                                                                                                                                  23 November 2004

Aim:

        I am intending to test the elasticity of a squash ball at different temperatures.

Introduction:

                I will be testing the elasticity by heating or cooling the squash ball in water for 2 minuets to the desired temperature and then drop it from a height of 50cms, recording the number or bounces and the height of the first bounce. I will also be testing the squash ball under compression. I will be designing and building a device to compress the squash ball evenly under a mass of 40N, and then measuring the compression with a ruler.

A squash ball is a sealed unit. The volume of air within the ball is a fixed amount, or constant. When the ball is heated, the volume of air inside increases. This can be explained using collision theory of molecules.

From the diagram, we can see that at higher temperatures the molecules increase in velocity and therefore collide with the walls of the squash ball more often thus increasing the volume. However, the volume is not the only variable; the squash ball is providing an opposite force and therefore not expanding at the same rate as the air inside. This means that there is also an increase in pressure when the ball is heated.

From this, I believe that as the temperature increases, the higher the first bounce will be and the number of bounces will also increase proportionally.

Regarding the volume, I believe that the volume will increase exponentially up to 100º c.

Preliminary testing:

Before I and to conduct the investigation, I carried out some preliminary testing, to ensure that the investigation I had choose was valid and was going to provide me with some sound results. I began by deciding what I was going to measure and test, and what my variables were going to be. I decided that I was only going to have one variable, temperature, which is mentioned in more detail below, and 4 tests, each one related to the elasticity of the squash ball and each one conducted at that temperature. The 4 tests are;

Height of bounce: 

For the preliminary tests I cooled the ball to 0ºc and then measured the height of the bounce and then heated the ball to 50°c and 100ºc measuring the height of the bounce at each temperature. I found there to be a significant enough change so I decided to use this test.

Number of bounces:

When the ball was dropped from a height of 500mm at room temperature, the number of bounces was only 2, however when heated to 100ºc this increased to 12. This I will use as a test.

Diameter:

In this test I cooled to the ball to 0ºc and measure the diameter of the squash ball from the same point each time, using a digital venier calliper and recorded the results. I then did the same at 50°c and 100ºc. On comparing the results I found that there was a minimal change over these temperatures although I decided to use this anyway.

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Compression:

When it came to compressing the ball I had to devise a way to apply an even force on the ball in a linear way. This proved to be difficult at first; however I overcame this by devising a piece of apparatus that would do just this. On carrying out the test, I found it to give good results.

Variables:

There is only one variable in my experiment, which is temperature. I will be changing the temperature from 0-100°c in 10°c intervals, using a water bath. I will begin by preparing the apparatus, and ...

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