Resistance of a Wire

779 Words2 Pages

Resistance of a Wire

Introduction

Resistance is the opposition a material offers to the flow of

electricity. The electrical resistance of an object is not only by

what material it's made of, but also by its shape. A very thin copper

wire has more resistance than a thick copper wire of the same length.

A very long copper wire has more resistance than a short one of the

same thickness. Resistance is measured in Ohms.

Variables

There were three variables that our group was able to choose from; the

length of the wire, the area of the wires cross section (thickness) or

the type of wire (constantan or nichrome). All of these variables are

able to change the resistance of the wire.

Here are my thoughts and predictions on what would happen to the

resistance of the wire as you change the variables. I think that if

you change the length of the wire then the resistance would increase

as the length increased but the current would decrease. If you changed

the thickness of the wire then the resistance would decrease as the

wire got thicker but the current would increase. If you change the

type of wire then you will receive different results, as there may be

more or less resistance between types of wire.

To study the resistance or wire we experimented on changing the length

of nichrome wire. We measured the volts and amps over 1 metre; I

worked out the resistance using my calculator. We carried out this

experiment 5 times to make the results fair. We let the wire cool down

a bit between doing the experiments, as its temperature did tend to

increase as we got to the end of each experiment.

Analysis

We took a set of practice results before starting the experiment. Here

they are.

Wire

Volts

Amps

Ohms

10cm

2.63

2.53

1.04

50cm

4.16

0.82

5.

Open Document