An Investigation into the Factors That Affect the Distance Travelled By Projected Margarine Tub.

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Jane Guthrie 11G                                                26th February 2002

An Investigation into the Factors That Affect the Distance Travelled By

Projected Margarine Tub.

Aim

There are many factors that effect the distance travelled by a projected margarine tub, the three main factors being:

  • The mass of the margarine tub.
  • The type of surface where the margarine tub will be projected.
  • The amount of energy given (potential energy)

For this investigation I am going to find out how changing the mass of the margarine tub affects the distance in which it is projected.

Prediction

I predict the greater the masses of the margarine tub, the shorter the distance it will travel. This is because as the mass increases, the frictional force is greater.  This means that there is a greater pressure between the tub and the floor.  The higher the pressure is the greater the amount of heat produced due to friction.  This heat is lost quickly and so the tub travels a shorter distance.  Whenever energy is transferred a force moves.  If the force and the pull back distance remain constant and the mass of the tub is doubled, the distance travelled by the tub is halved.  As the elastic potential energy is converted to kinetic energy that is converted further into heat energy.  I predict that this should produce a smooth, curve on my graph, as this will show that as the mass increases, the distance travelled will decrease.  

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1/2 Fe =Л m g d

The average force is a half (5), when I am pulling back my tub to 10N, therefore 0N, will be too small, minimum and 10N will be the maximum in which I can pull back the tub.  Therefore I have used 5N to complete the table, which is mid way between 0 and 10N.

I have chosen to use 0.04 as my coefficient of friction.  This is because 0.04 is the coefficient for teflon on teflon, which is plastic on plastic.  This is ...

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