'The Effect of heat on a Squash Ball'.

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By Habibur Rahman 11B-1 (11-9-03)

Science GCSE

Coursework

‘The Effect of heat on a Squash Ball’

A squash ball is a hollow ball made of rubber, with air inside. Before starting a game of squash, most players will “warm up” the ball by knocking it around the court. This raises the temperature of the ball and increases the “bounciness”.

Energy changes in a Bouncing Ball

Initially, before the ball is released energy is stored as gravitational potential energy (mgh). As the ball falls its speed increases and the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy (1/2mv2) of the moving ball until at the impact with the ground it has no potential energy. Notice that if there are no energy losses the total energy (i.e. PE + KE) stays constant.

When the ball hits the ground it begins to slow down and as it does so it deforms. What’s happening here is that kinetic energy of the ball is being used to do work deforming the ball. Some this energy is stored as potential energy in the deformed ball (sometimes called elastic potential energy) and some is converted to heat and sound.

When the ball reaches zero speed and maximum deformation, it has no kinetic energy (its not moving0 and because some energy has been converted to heat and sound, its elastic potential energy is less than its initial gravitational potential energy. Again notice that the total energy (elastic PE + heat + sound) is constant.

As the ball returns to its original shape, some of the energy that was stored as elastic PE is converted back to kinetic energy, heat and sound i.e. the ball starts to bounce.

Once the ball leaves the ground it will start to slow down as it rises and its kinetic energy is converted back to gravitational potential energy. Because some of its initial energy has been converted to heat and sound it will finish up with less gravitational energy than it started with i.e. the rebound height is less than the starting height.

Additional Information

When a solid is heated it expands. The molecules inside energize and have more energy and bounce around the solid. The hotter the solid becomes, the more they vibrate. This causes the solid to expand slightly when heated. Solids cannot be compressed because the molecules are already packed very close together. When the solid hits the ground the atoms push each other away forcing the ball to bounce higher. So this is another factor in consideration.

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Aim

My aim is to heat a squash ball in water at different temperatures. Then hold the ball at a certain height and let it go. Once it has bounced quickly record the height at one bounce. My objective is to see if temperature has an effect on the bounce of the ball. Each test will be done three times to ensure that I get the best results as possible.

Preliminary Work

For my preliminary work I used a 100ml of water. Then I put the squash ball in the beaker and started heating. I noticed that ...

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