Normal Force Essay

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Discussion: Based on the data obtained, Figure 1 represents a force vs. time graph for the amount of force that was used to pull a wooden block across a table. As illustrated in Figure 1, the initial flat line in the graph represents the block at rest, this is where the forces acting on the object are the normal force, gravity, and the static frictional force. Force was then applied to the wooden block until it began to move, the point at which the block moves is the peak in Figure 1. This is the point at which there was enough force applied to the block to overcome the maximum static friction force. The graph then begins to decrease because once a force is applied to the object that is greater than the maximum frictional force, not as much force is needed to continue to pull …show more content…

In agreement with preliminary question 3, Figure 1 demonstrates that the force necessary to keep the block sliding is significantly less than the force that is necessary to initiate the slide.
Table 1 represents the mass of the block that was used throughout this experiment, which was found to be 0.467kg. In Table 2, the normal force and peak static frictional force were found for the wooden block alone (Table 1) and when it had 500g or 1000g of additional weight. To calculate the normal force, the weight of the block (including the weights added if applicable) was multiplied by gravity. As shown in Table 2, when no additional weight were added to the block, the normal force was 4.58N and the peak static friction was 1.775N. When 500g of weight was added to the block the normal force was 9.48N and the average peak static friction was 3.688N. Then, when 1000g was added to the block the normal force was 14.38N and the average peak static friction was 5.391N. Figure 2 demonstrates the results of the average peak static friction values vs. the normal force,

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