EXPERIMENT 202: CONSERVATION OF MOMENTUM: THE BALLISTIC PENDULUM

FE ANNE L. BRAGAT
Physics Department, Mapua Institute of Technology falbragat@yahoo.com ABSTRACT
For this experiment, we will be able to determine the velocity of a steel ball before collision from two different methods. The first is the ballistic method which we get the average angles from five trials, initial and final height of the pendulum, the increase in height, the velocity of the steel ball and the pendulum right after collision and the velocity of the pendulum after collision. The mass of the steel ball and the mass of the pendulum should be measure also and for this method, the ball is launched towards the pendulum which causes inelastic collision. Another method that we used is the trajectory method which we get the average horizontal distance of the projectile from the five trials and the height from the reference point to the ground. Finally, we determine the percentage difference of the two method which is 1.85%. Key Words- ballistic pendulum, trajectory method, collision, conservation of momentum
to the weight of the moving bodies and indirectly proportional to the density of the medium is disproved by Philoponus through appeal to the same kind of experiment that Galileo was to carry out centuries later. This idea was refined by the European philosophers Peter Olivi and Jean Buridan. Buridan referred to impetus being proportional to the weight times the speed. Moreover, Buridans theory was different to his predecessors in that he did not consider impetus to be self dissipating, asserting that a body would be arrested by the forces of air resistance and gravity which might be opposing its impetus. Ren Descartes believed that the total "quantity of motion" in the universe is conserved, where the quantity of motion is understood as the product of size and speed. This should not be read as a statement of the modern law of momentum, since he had no concept of mass as distinct from weight and size, and more importantly he believed that it is speed rather than velocity that is conserved. So for Descartes if a moving object were to bounce off a surface, changing its direction but not its speed, there would be no change in its quantity of motion.[6] Galileo, later, in his Two New Sciences, used the Italian word "impeto". The extent to which Isaac Newton contributed to the concept has been much debated. The answer is apparently nothing, except to state more fully and with better mathematics what was already known. Yet for scientists, this was the death knell for Aristotelian physics and supported other progressive scientific theories (i.e., Kepler's laws of planetary motion). Conceptually, the first and second of Newton's Laws of Motion had already been stated by John Wallis in his 1670 work, Mechanica sive De Motu, Tractatus Geometricus: "the initial state of the body, either of rest or of motion, will persist"

I. INTRODUCTION
The experiment aims to validate, as well as to prove the law of conservation of momentum. Momentum was not merely the motion but was the power residing in a moving object, captured by today's mathematical definitions. A movement was a stage in any sort of change, while swiftness captured only speed. The concept of momentum in classical mechanics was originated by a number of great thinkers and experimentalists. The first of these was philosopher John Philoponus, in his to Aristotles Physics. As regards motion of bodies falling through Aristotle's verdict that the speed is Byzantine commentary the natural a medium, proportional

and "If the force is greater than the resistance, motion will result". Wallis uses momentum and vis for force. Newton's Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica, when it was first published in 1687, showed a similar casting around for words to use for the mathematical momentum. His Definition II defines quantity of motion as "arising from the velocity and quantity of matter conjointly", which identifies it as momentum. Thus when in Law II he refers to change of motion being proportional to the force impressed, he is generally taken to mean momentum and not motion. It remained only to assign a standard term to the quantity of motion. The first use of "momentum" in its proper mathematical sense is not clear but by the time of Jenning's Miscellanea in 1721, four years before the final edition of Newton's Principia Mathematica, momentum M or "quantity of motion" was being defined for students as "a rectangle", the product of Q and V, where Q is quantity of material and V is velocity. The application of conservation of momentum is widely used throughout the world especially in the collisions of cars. For a policeman will try to question himself who has the greater mass, which has the greater velocity or in what direction does two cars go to know who hit first. For this experiment, we will be using a ballistic pendulum.

A ballistic pendulum, in figure 1, is an instrument which is capable of capturing the ball hitting it. Using energy conservation law, velocity of the bullet can be obtained. At first the bullet is moving towards the pendulum at velocity, . A pendulum starting at rest, but because of collision, can gain energy. Since the momentum is conserved but not the energy, collision occurred is referred to as inelastic collision. For inelastic collision, final velocity, of two objects are the same. II. METHODOLOGY For the first part of the experiment, the initial velocity of the steel ball was determined using the ballistic method. In order to do that, determine first the mass of the steel ball and the mass of the ballistic pendulum. Set up the apparatus (see figure 1) in such a way that the pendulum bob is in the 0o level.

FIGURE 2: The materials used in method 1 namely

the ballistic pendulum method composed of meter stick, the apparatus and the steel ball.

FIGURE 1: a ballistic pendulum apparatus used in

method 1.

Then, measure the initial height of the pendulum bob from the base to the reference point O. When the steel ball has been fired to the pendulum hold, take note of the displaced angle, do it five times and then get the mean angle. Set manually the pendulum bob to the mean angle computed then determine carefully the vertical distance from the base of the ballistic pendulum to the reference point O. Get the difference between y2 and y1 to get the increase in height y of the steel ball and the pendulum bob which is used to determine the

change in potential energy. Compute the velocity of the steel ball and the pendulum bob after the inelastic collision using the value of increase in height. By using conservation of momentum, the balls velocity can be readily determined, which is actually the firing velocity. For the second part of the experiment, the initial velocity of the steel ball was determined using the trajectory method. In order to do that, fix the pendulum upward so that the ball can be fired horizontally to the floor without obstruction, see the figure below.

FIGURE 4: The materials used in method 2 namely

trajectory method composed of carbon paper, the apparatus, meter stick and the steel ball.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The outcome of the experiment is based on how accurate and precise the data are. The experiment is not 100% accurate because of some factors that are interfering with. On the first part of the experiment, one minor error that can be possibly done is performing the experiment not in a horizontal table. This would affect greatly in the angle. The application of principle of conservation of momentum was a great help in order to derive the initial velocity of the steel ball after an inelastic collision with the pendulum. By comparing these results with the projectile motion method, gives us an opportunity to know the consistencies of our analysis. Aside from that, the presence of air resistance could be a possibility, although not affect greatly, can lessen the range of the bullet. Taking this account, we could have an idea why we surprisingly got a velocity in momentum conservation method similar to projectile motion method.

Figure 3: a ballistic pendulum apparatus used in

method 2 which the pendulum is fix upward.

Set the spring gun at the end of the table. Never aim the spring gun to anybody or any breakable object. Allot longer distance than the expected horizontal distance the steel ball will travel. Measure the vertical distance of the firing position. Using the velocity of the ball calculated in part 1, the horizontal distance which the ball is suppose to land can be predicted. Within that area, put a sheet of bond paper, face down carbon paper and another bond paper. When the steel balls land on this pack of papers it will leave a black mark on the bottom sheet of bond paper. Fire the steel ball and measure the horizontal distance. Do it five times and then compute the average horizontal distance. Determine the initial velocity.

The results of the experiment are shown in the table below:

Table 1: Ballistic Method Mass(steel ball) m1= 65.875 g TRIAL 1 2 3 4 5 ANGLE 350 37.50 350 37.50 36.50 y1 of pendulum y2 of pendulum Increase in height: velocity of steel ball and pendulum after collision velocity of pendulum before collision velocity of steel ball before collision Table 2 : Trajectory Method Gravitational constant :g = 980 cm/s2 TRIAL 1 2 3 4 5 HORIZONTAL DISTANCE, x 148.5 cm 148.7 cm 147.6 cm 148.2 cm 148.8 cm Velocity of the steel ball before collision v1 = 344.22 cm/s Height from the reference point to the ground y = 91 cm y1 = 8 cm y2 = 14 cm y = 6 cm u = 108.44 cm/s v2 = 0 cm/s v1 = 337.91cm/s Mass(pendulum) m2 = 139.4 g

Average angle: 36.30

Average x: 148.36 cm Table 3: Determining the Percentage Difference Percentage difference: 1.85 %

Using the formula below, we can get the average angle from the five trials. eqn. 3 After measuring the initial and final height of the pendulum and computed the change in its height, we can get the velocity of the steel ball and the pendulum after collision. To get that, we use the formula below:

computed, velocity for the trajectory motion is more accurate that ballistic pendulum method. It is less by about four times. However, by directly comparing these sigma values, the same variance can be seen. It implies that projectile motion method is more accurate by about 400%. It is consistent with the percentage analysis. Since the collision of the ball and the pendulum catcher is perfectly inelastic, we could say that the ratio of the masses before and after collision is equal to the kinetic energy for these respective points. By looking upon the nature of the apparatus itself, we could also say that source of error from the momentum conservation may be due to presence of friction. We can have an idea of that since the ball used is a metal while the pendulum catcher is plastic. This would probably the source of kinetic energy discrepancy. It also suggests that our measured velocity in the pendulum experiment is slightly slower (due to friction). However, we still derive on almost the same velocity for each method although we got a discrepancy in accurateness and friction. I consider the possibility involves in measuring. In the trajectory method, the point of impact from the launching point is about more than a meters away (horizontal distance). Of course, this long distance is to be measured, from the table to the floor, and up to the point of impact. Most probably, it would give us a large discrepancy and uncertainties in measuring. Comparing it to the first method, we are only to measure the change in height which is about 3-4 cm long. This value is very much shorter compared in the second method. Thus, less uncertainty in measuring would have to commit. IV. CONCLUSION The ballistic method was widely applied in the determination of velocity of a steel ball. Aside from that, another method can be used namely the trajectory motion principle, we can also validate that velocity.

eqn. 4

After getting the velocity of the steel ball and the pendulum after collision and knowing that the velocity of the pendulum before collision is 0, we can now compute for the velocity of the steel ball before collision which has the formula:

eqn. 5

On the second part, we are also getting the initial velocity of the steel ball but with another method, the trajectory method. Using the formula below, we can get the average distance from the five trials. eqn. 6 After getting the average distance, we also measure the height from the reference point to the ground and then calculate for the velocity of the steel ball before collision using the formula below:

eqn. 7

After we have gotten the data for the two methods, we can now know their percentage difference using the equation below: eqn. 8 We can say that the velocities from two method were somewhat matched, since they have a difference of 1.85%. By first judgment, we could say that we validated conservation of momentum. But, by looking in our sigma values

An inelastic collision is a collision occurred in the momentum conservation method of determining the velocity. Thus, I conclude that the ratio of masses before and after collision is equal to ratio of momentum before and after collision. The ratios are almost but not perfectly equal. This small discrepancy is primarily due to presence of friction which makes the velocity, a little bit slower. Thus, we should expect a lesser velocity in this method that in project motion method. This is consistent with our result. Energy is not conserved in inelastic collision. A high percentage of energy is lost. On the other hand, momentum is conserved but with a small discrepancy. By the application of trigonometry, we could obtain the change in height instead of measuring which leads to inaccuracy. I conclude that the reason we come up for an almost exactly the same velocity despite the presence of factors of errors in the first method is because in trajectory method, more assumptions could be done in measuring compared to the first. Also, air resistance can make the range shorter than expected. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The ideas of this paper cannot be done in its present form without first, my group mates who let me to be with them in performing the experiment. Without them, I cant do this work alone. I also want to thank our professor for sharing us his knowledge about this topic for us to have an understanding about the experiment and to the lab assistant that allow us borrow the apparatuses and for orienting us for proper care of those.

REFERENCES: [1]Young, H., Freedman, R., University Physics

with Modern Physics, 12th Edition, 2009

[2]Williams, J., Metcalfe H., Modern Physics, 1976 [3]Padua, A., Crisostomo, R., Practical and

Explorational Physics, 2004

[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Ballistic_pendulum [5]www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-ballisticpendulum.htm [6]http://www.dysan.net/weird/show/646.html