Non-Constant Acceleration Lab
Isaiah Hernandez, Tony Wu, Leslie Zho
Sept. 15, 2016
Purpose: Find how far an elephant on frictionless roller skates travels (with given conditions) before coming to rest.
Theory: There is a long and tedious analytical approach to solving the problem at hand and this method is shown on the first page of the lab description. We were asked to find the same result by instead entering the data into an excel worksheet.
A summary of apparatus:
A 5000-kg elephant on frictionless roller skates is going 25 m/s when it gets to the bottom of a hill and arrives on level ground. At that point a 1500-kg rocket mounted on the elephant's back generates a constant 8000 N thrust opposite the elephant's direction of motion. the mass of the rocket changes with time so that the mass with respect to time is equal to 1500 kg - 20 kg/s*t.
A 5000-kg elephant on frictionless roller skates is going 25 m/s when it gets to the bottom of a hill and arrives on level ground. At that point a 1500-kg rocket mounted on the elephant's back generates a constant 8000 N thrust opposite the elephant's direction of motion. the mass of the rocket changes with time so that the mass with respect to time is equal to 1500 kg - 20 kg/s*t.
A list/table of your measured data:
Explanation of your graph/analysis:
Based off of the data entered into the excel worksheet, we found that it takes the elephant approxiamtely 2.40 seconds before reaching constant speed with no acceleration. This does not necessarily mean the elephant is at rest. The elephant will continuously travel at a constant speed of about 1.6446 m/s until some outside force opposes its motion.
Conclusions:
The elephant in this problem was found to potentially keep rolling forever even after the rocket on its back stops accelerating it forward. The acceleration kept decreasing as time went on and eventually reached a value of 0 m/s^2 but this only means that the velocity will constantly stay at whatever value it was found to be at the same instance the acceleration went to 0. This is because the elephant is resting on frictionless roller skates. Without an opposing friciton force, the elephant will virtually keep moving forever.
Explanation of your graph/analysis:
Based off of the data entered into the excel worksheet, we found that it takes the elephant approxiamtely 2.40 seconds before reaching constant speed with no acceleration. This does not necessarily mean the elephant is at rest. The elephant will continuously travel at a constant speed of about 1.6446 m/s until some outside force opposes its motion.
Conclusions:
The elephant in this problem was found to potentially keep rolling forever even after the rocket on its back stops accelerating it forward. The acceleration kept decreasing as time went on and eventually reached a value of 0 m/s^2 but this only means that the velocity will constantly stay at whatever value it was found to be at the same instance the acceleration went to 0. This is because the elephant is resting on frictionless roller skates. Without an opposing friciton force, the elephant will virtually keep moving forever.
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