General Physics Laboratory

Fall 20-21

Experiment 3 – Hook’s Law

STUDENT INFORMATION GRADE

Session
Student No Name and Surname Dept. Signature
No
………
62200046 Nahla Almeamar ………
Objective:

Explain the Hooke’s law by investigating the behavior of a force exerted on a spring and prove this
action, then examine the simple harmonic motion.

Back ground:

Hooke’s law:

Hooke’s law is the behavior an ideal spring which is a system which depends on the amount of the
spring stretching due to the force produced on it. According to Hooke’s Law, we need a force (F =
kx) acting on a spring to make it stretches more than its normal shape as x, and k which is the
spring constant (each spring has its own constant).

After levitating the air table to an inclined position and attaching one of the disks to the spring to
constitute the force that allows the spring elongates, the gravitational force that stretches the spring
downwards (Fg = mg) become the parallel component (Fg =mgsin) of this force on air table, the force
originated from the gravitational force is downwards but the force exerted on the disc because of the
spring is upwards. The spring can stretch until the two forces are equal to each other. The point where
all the forces are equal to each other is called the equilibrium point and mass spring system stay
equilibrium if there is no any force acting on it.

Simple Harmonic Motion:

If the spring is pulled downwards, it will want to turn back to its equilibrium state again. When we
exert a force on our spring its velocity will increase and the spring will accelerate upward. If we
exceed the equilibrium position, gravitational force will be greater than the spring force and the
acceleration will be downwards. When it comes to its equilibrium position, the net force exerted on
the disc will be zero. But it will continue its movement in the same way since its velocity is
increased. Once the velocity of disc in the short end of the spring is zero, it will move towards the
gravitational force. When it gets to the place of balance again the powers influenced by the spring
will be equal so they will cancel each other. But our spring is going to continue downhill because
it has a certain velocity. As a consequence, our mass will continue to make oscillations. The time
 for a full tour of this oscillation is called the period, and this is determined by the spring constant
and the total mass attached to the spring.

Procedure for Hooke’s law:

1- Open Phet website and open masses and springs and select Lab so you can choose different masses.
2- Choose a random spring constant (k) and then place the ruler at the beginning of the spring so you
can measure the difference in length when adding weight.

3- Choose different masses (ex: 50, 100, 150, 200, …), tie them to the end of the spring and record

the length when the system is stable. Then find the displacement of the length

4- Draw Fg -x graph. After pointing on the graph it should be a straight line. The slope of this line is

the spring constant (k)

Procedure for simple harmonic spring:

1- Open Phet website and open masses and springs and select Lab so you can choose different masses

2- Choose a random spring constant (k) and then add the first weight (50g).

3- Place the ruler at the beginning of the spring and pull the spring down 20cm.

4- Start the timer while leaving the spring freely and when it reaches the top stop the timer to count
how much time it take to complete a half tour.

5- For a complete tour we pull the same weight at the same length and leave it freely while starting
the timer, the time that the spring reaches the top then come back down with is a complete tour.

6- Repeat the same steps for different weights (100g, 150g, 200g, 250g)

7- When increasing the mass the time take to complete one period increases.
LABORATORY REPORT
Fg -x graph

‫قيم ص‬
2

1.8

1.6

1.4

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35

k = Fg / x = 0.49 / 0.08 = 6.125m/s

The slope of the line is equal to the spring constant (k), and the area under the slope is equal to the
work done.

Fg = mg in kg Length when adding weights x in m

0.0098 48 0

0.05*9.8 = 0.49N 56 8/100 = 0.08

0.1*9.8 = 0.98N 64 16/100 = 0.16

0.15*9.8 = 1.47N 72 24/100 = 0.24

200*9.8 = 1.96 80 32/100 = 0.32

Simple harmonic motion:

weight half tour tour (period) spring constant

0.05 kg 0.30 0.60 w = 2*pi/T

w = 10.4733

k = w^2*m

k = 5.48 N/m

Conclusion Discussion:
The experiment goal was to proof Hooke’s law and hoe the spring act when applying a force on
it. The goal was to find the spring constant (k) and we did that by applying different weights to a
spring and record the values in a Fg -x graph, the slope formed is the spring constant. We
found it using k = mg / x. comparing the spring constant found from the experiment was nearly
equal to the spring constant found by the simple harmonic motion (which is calculated by finding
the time for the spring to finish one tour and then using this rule k = (4 * pi^2 * m)/ T^2. Both
spring constants were not fully equal because of some calculation errors.

References:

https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/masses-and-springs/latest/masses-and-
springs_en.html) Phet website)