Nichrome
A nickel-chromium alloys with high electrical resistance and an ability to withstand high temperatures; used for resistance heating elements. The melting point is 1400°C. Has low conductivity.
Hypothesis:
I predict the copper wire has the lowest resistance. It is because as copper has higher conductivity, the current go through more smoothly so that there are less resisting occurs.
Variable:
Independent- Types of wire
Dependent- Resistance
Control variable
Materials: Diagrams:
Power pack
Constantan wire
Copper wire
Nichrome wire
Standard wire
Crocodile clip
Ammeter
Voltmeter
Precaution:
- Ensure no water around because they are conductor and charges electricity
- Be careful with wire getting burned due to high voltages
- Be careful with wire heating up
- Watch out on sparks occurred when using crocodile clip
Method:
- Connect up a series circuit
- Attach an ammeter with a gap between two wire with crocodile clip
- Attach wires in the circuit
- Connect voltmeter in parallel to wires
- Let the current go through
- Read the ammeter reading and voltmeter reading
- Replace the wire, in the same length
- Repeat
Result:
Conclusion:
We can say that each types of wire have different resistance. Also as they can conduct current stronger and conduct power weaker, they will have less resistance. The result looks good because also in the theory, copper has the lowest resistance and nichrome has higher resistance due to their conductivity.
Evaluation:
My hypothesis was “I predict the copper wire has the lowest resistance. It is because as copper has higher conductivity, the current go through more smoothly so that there are less resisting occurs.” This was right because result table shows that copper has the lowest resistance and nichrome has higher resistance. Our experiment is reliable as we had controlled variable well, for example we used everything the same and length that cut off were very accurate. Improvement that we can do for next time is organizing, because it took more than 10 minutes to set up the circuit and start experiment, everything other was fine.
Our data is reliable because we had 2 trials to ensure our results. No anomalous data were occurred in our experiment. However, it could have be occurred by setting the circuit wrongly for example connecting ammeter/voltmeter in parallel/ series or connecting negative and positive opposite. This topic is all related to environments because the wire we used are from natural resources and we were investigating resistance of them.
