Centripetal Force Investigation

Yuichiro Suzuki
Period 1
Partner: Kevin Sun
March 2nd, 2015

Raw Data:

The Suspended Masses and Rubber Stoppers Corresponding Time for 30

Complete Revolution for Two Trials with a Constant Radius
Mass (g) +/0.005

Time taken for

30 revolutions (s)
+/- 0.01 [Trial 1]

Time taken for

30 revolutions (s)
+/- 0.01 [Trial 2]

Radius (cm)
+/- 0.1

100g

26.81

26.06

80.0

120g

23.91

24.00

80.0

140g

23.44

23.37

80.0

160g

21.94

22.31

80.0

180g

20.25

20.25

80.0

200g

19.62

19.62

80.0

220g

18.56

18.87

80.0

240g

17.75

17.81

80.0

260g

16.56

16.69

80.0

280g

16.00

16.12

80.0

Data Analysis:
The Average Time, Average Period, Circumference, Speed, and Centripetal
Force for 10 Different masses
Average
time
(s)

Period (s)

Circumferenc
e
(m)

Speed
(m/s)

Speed
Squared
(m2/s2)

Force
Centripetal
(N)

26.44

0.8812

6.283

7.130

50.84

0.980

23.96

0.7985

6.283

7.869

61.91

1.176

23.41

0.7802

6.283

8.053

64.85

1.372

22.13

0.7375

6.283

8.519

72.58

1.568

20.25

0.6750

6.283

9.308

86.64

1.764

19.62

0.6540

6.283

9.607

92.30

1.960

18.72

0.6238

6.283

10.07

101.4

2.156

17.78

0.5927

6.283

10.60

112.4

2.352

16.63

0.5542

6.283

11.34

128.5

2.548

16.06

0.5353

6.283

11.74

137.8

2.744

Sample Calculation
Average Time:

Average Period:

Circumference:

Speed:

Average time = (time1 + time2)/2

Average time = (26.81s + 26.06s)/2
Average time = 26.435s 26.44s

Average Period = Average time 30 revolution

Average Period = 26.435s 30 revolution
Average Period = 0.88116s 0.8812s

Conversion: cm to m 100m/100 = 1m
Circumference = 2 radius (m)
Circumference = 2 1m
Circumference= 6.283m

Speed = Distance / Time

Speed = Circumference / Average period (Period equivalent to time)
= 6.283 m 0.8812 s
= 7.130 m s1

Speed Squared:
Speed Squared = speed speed
Speed Squared = 7.130m/s 7.130m/s
Speed Squared = 50.837m2/s2 50.84 m2/s2
Force Centripetal:
Conversion: g to kg 100g/1000 = 0.1kg
Force Centripetal = Force Gravity
Fc = Ag M
Fc = 9.8 m s2 0.1 kg
Fc = 0.98N

Graphs:

The Correlation Between Centripetal Force and Speed

The Correlation Between Centripetal Force and Speed Squared

Conclusion:
The positive incline in both force vs speed and force vs speed squared graph
reveals that as the force centripetal increase, the speed of the stopper will
increase as well. This relationship is represented in the equation Fc = mv 2/r.
To show the relationship between speed and Fc, we can eliminate the
constants in this equation; which are mass of the stopper and the radius.
Thus the relation can be written as Fc v2 and this is the relationship
shown in the graph. Also the curves in both graphs are almost linear. This
indicates that the proportion of increase in force centripetal is almost
constant. This proves that our investigation was accurate because we
controlled Fc is equivalent to Fg in this investigation and we controlled it by
changing the mass in a constant rate of 20g.
Evaluation:
In this investigation, there were mainly two sources of error.
One error is how parallel to the ground the stopper was spinning. Since we
were spinning the stopper, it was not possible to spin the stopper perfectly
parallel to the ground. When the circular path is not parallel to the ground,
the force centripetal will not be the same for every part of the path as the

lower part will have less force acting upon the stopper and the higher part
will have more force acting upon the stopper due to gravity. This will affect
our calculation of Force centripetal. If there was a device that could spin the
stopper at exact horizontal, this error could be minimized.
Second error is the fact that the length of the radius was variable. This is
due to the inconsistency of the speed at which we spun the stopper. The red
marking that we made to make sure that the radius was not changing
moved up and down and had small changes in our radius during the
investigation. This affected in our data because firstly, we needed to make
the speed faster and slower to adjust the radius and secondly because we
cannot assume that the radius stayed the same when considering about the
relationship between Fc and speed. This error can be reduced if we used a
device that will spin the stopper at a constant speed.