TEACHER GUIDE, CRUSADER EDUCATION Overview The Crusader Education Screw is crafted from durhle herdwood and metal to provide long-lasting piece of laboratory equipment that lets students explore the basic concept ofthis simple machine. Students can tum the serew via the sturdy handle, and can easily note the force multiplication the screw provides. This Teacher Guide will explain the history and uses ofthis particular simple machine, plus Suggestions for experiments for students to do with the equipment. The Screw: A Simple Machine Mos simple machines have one basic gost allow you to perform task using fess fee than you would otherwise need, Another way {to put this ss follows: a simple machine allows you to supply much more fore than you sormally could You have likely fastened two things together using a serew a some point The threads on the Screw are designed‘ et you tam a rotary motion ofthe sere int Tinear motion ofthe see i away Such that the force you appli greatly ample! Think sbout changing aire on your ea. The tre is held on with srews; using a wrench 0 Tighlen the screws can make the screws apply thousands of pounds of frce to hold the tte on. This amazing force ampliication i also ‘behind the jack that you use to gel your ea of he grou od is used fo tum the sew inthe jack, producing enough fore to lit the ‘The Screw in History Archimedes wa the frst person to do a serious investigation ofthe screw. In fact, he designed a screw for a particular purpose: raising water! Tuming ‘a sorew ina shat whose end went info water atthe end ofthe sha raised the water up, This had two benefits 5) Changing the direction ofthe force. The shaft was rotated; this rotational force was changed, via te serew, into an upward force onthe water ‘Atotational force is much easier to produc, by having an animal or a person push or pull a shaft as they walk around in a cicle. The person or ‘imal could price a good deal of foree this way, And the sere tumed this free into an upward free on the water i) The serew allowed for great force amplification. The serew c uring the serew could possibly Tit it a weight of water much greater han the weight the person oF animal Indeed, this form of screw is sil called an "Archimedean serew.” Uni afew hundred years ago, it was the standard way of raising water from a wel, ‘or pumping water ffom a mine. In fet, the English unit for power, the horsepower, was figured by looking at how much work a horse could do during a day sunning an Archimedean serew by looking at ow much wate the horse could lit what distance! You may also have heard the propeller on a boat ora ship called the "screw." This is because the first propeller driven craft used something more like a screw. The idea was the same as an Archimedean screw rotational motion ofthe shat pushed water. When a boat pushes backwards on water, Newton's 3rd Law (fr every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) tll us thatthe water also pushes forward on the boat so this frce pushes tne boat forward! Ifyou look at a propeller designed to move water or air, you can see that the blades are tipped, just asthe threads ofa screw. They are really designed todo the same thing! (Once it hecame possible to make nuts and bolts economically in large quantiies, the seew became very useful asa device for ataching things together. Ifyou look ata modern automobile, there are hundreds of screws (in the form of nuts and bots) holding all parts together: sews hold the ‘wheels onthe axles, screws hold the dors onthe body, sews hold the engine in place. And this is where you are most likely to se the sew in fotion on a day-to-day basis in modem times: asa bolt or serew tha holds something together Physics Principles ‘Thete ate two things that a serew does 4) The srew converts the rotational motion af the serew int linear motion of the screw, 4) The sevew provides am increase in avilable fFirs, le’ take & look at work and fore, Force isa push ora pull the unit of force i the newton (N), named after Isaac Newton, (In English units, the unit of fore is the pound.) Energy isa unt of work: the unit of work isthe joule (), named afer the seientist ofthis mame. (In English units, there isa hopeless mishmash of energy units: the calorie, the BTU, the fo'-pound... We wil avoid these units!) Whenever you change energy ffom one form into another, we say you are doing work. When you raise an object up, you increase its potential energy. Tie means you have dane work Here's a specific example: if you take a box tat has amass LO kilograms (about 22 poss) and rae bya distance of I meter Gust over ‘A10kg masse ne yard), you do an amount of work that is xual o approximately 100 joules ised by I meter. joule the symbol for joule J, we write 100 joules ts 100 3" i unt of The work done in nergy ora ni of work this cas is 100 oul The equation looks like this: " Change in potential energy = Work done = (mas) x (chang in eight) x | meter The work depends Gravy) cn tree things the big ciference, By “gravity” we mean a number tat represents the strength of gravy the mass and the Techy itis the aeceration of gravity, We use he symbol go rpresent it, strength OF avy and it has a value of approximately 10 meters per second per second on earth! On toke ‘ther planets, gravity has a different value, (The 10 meters pee second per second reans this if you drop an abject, after one Second, it willbe falling ata speed of = 0 meters per second After two seconds it wil be falling a 20 meters pet second. The speed increases by 10 meters per second, per second!) Putting in numbers, we gt ‘Change in potential energy ~ work done ~ (10 kg) x (1) x (10 m/s2)~ 100 joules Now, notice ths: the change in energy depends only onthe mass, gravity and the change in height! So, lets adda ramp to the picture Suppose we were o push ths object up a ramp as in the digram at right. We push the object farther, certainly. Inthe diagram shown, the object is pushed about 2 meters. But the change in heights stil I meter. And since the work only depends onthe change in eight, the work done is sil 100 J ‘The object is pushed And this isthe key to the ramps cover alonger distance, but the change in bight The work itil he same but the work was done over a longer distance. feat tmeten 5 Doing the same work over a longer distance means that you can do the work with less fore! Work can generally be figured like this Work done ~ Force x distance over which fore is applied Inthe above case, the work is done over twice as much distance: 2 meters instead fof | meter So we only need sbout hall as much Force to push the block up the ramp as we dot if i o> This means that you can produce more frce this way. Suppose the biggest block you can lift has @ weight of 1000 N. Ifyou use the ramp shown above, you can use the biggest force you can make, 1000 N,to push a block witha weight of 2000 N up the ramp! You have used the ramp to double the effective force you can provide! We have been talking about «ramp, but this force amplification is also the basic thing a screw docs for you: it lets you produce far more force that you otherse would be ale to This is because a screw is, essentially, a ramp. Suppose we took a rasp and wrapped it around a central pole. Tis would make something like a spiral stair ease ora sew! When you tur the serew, the screw moves up or down. This is, essentially just like moving someching up a ramp: the motion up ‘9¢ down is much less than the motion along the ramp (or the threads ofthe screw) and so you get a good deal more farce. Lets look at some numbers. Suppose you take the Crusader Education screw and tur the edge of the block stached tothe top ofthe stew, Suppose you tun the serew so tet it moves through its fill length of travel. As you do this, the corner ofthe block that you push on moves atta distance of Aout [4 meters, (Check it out! This seems like a very surprising distance, but the edge ofthe block really does mave this fat asthe sevew goes lou six and hal rotations?) During this motion, the tip ofthe serew moves a tral distance of about I centimeter 0,01 meters. Now, suppose a force pushes onthe end ofthe serew while you tar the black. The work done in both eases is the same, Suppose you ean apply a fore af 100 N to she block. How much force wil this produce on the end of the serew?First; lt’ calculate the work done turing the screw: Work = force x distance ‘Work done turing serew = (100 N) x (1.40 meters) = 149.7 ‘This is equal tothe work done by the force atthe end ofthe sew. By equating the swo Work values, we can compute the force atthe end ofthe setew. The work done by the force at the end of the serew is 140 J = force x distance ~(oree) x (0.01 meters) ‘and so we can calulate the force atthe end of the screw: force on end of serew =(140 Jy(0.01 m) = 14,0008 14,000 Nis the weight of 1400 kilograms: about 3000 pounds! By applying a modest force tothe block, you ‘ean produce a force wih the screw that is large enough to lift a small car. Ofcourse, this ist a surprise! as we ‘sav, many cars come with a serew jack that uses thie very principle to rise the caro change ie! ‘The serew jack works like so: tuming the sew brings the two sides ofthe jack together. This, in tur, mises the car. The end ofthe handle of the jack moves about SO meters (half the length of football Feld!) e the jack tases the car; the car moves approximately 20 centimeters curing this time. Raising the font end ofthis cat ‘wil take e force of approximate 10,000 Na force of about 2000 pounds. But this will ony require a force of 440.N onthe jack handle - a force af only § pounds! (This ignores friction; the actual force ruted will be ‘somewhat more than ths.) The sorew can provide aman force amplification that can let you do truly remarkable feats with modest forces. Experiments Feeling the Force ‘The best thing for students todo with this screw system isto have them fel how much force it can be used to produce Have one student tum the block to tur the serew, [Now have another stdent put a finger over the tend ofthe sere, and push oni to keep the serew from turing, The force thatthe student cas push with on the end ofthe block does not noticeably increase the force necessary to turn the Holding Force Since the srew can make so much fore, it can be wed to provide good dea of holding ore ‘Tur the screw in the usu fasion, but place piece of paper under the edge of the block as it tomes down, Tur the Block until the serew is reasonably tight. Now try to pull the piece of paper out ofthe block. You woat be abe to do this without tearing the paper; the foree onthe paper is immense, and fition will be quite large.Take it for a Spin ‘We have talked about using the sorew to conver rotational motion int linear motion but you can use the sew inthe opposite fashion: totum near ‘motion into rotational maton. Pa “Tum the screw so that itis all the way inthe block, Hold the screw unit up by the screw. Now give the block a gentle spin so thatthe serew unsere ws. As ‘his happens, the block will all, and will pick up speed gradually. You have tured the linear motion ‘of the Serew into rotational motion! Extensions ‘Once your students have fully explored the screw, there are some nice extensions you might have them do. Other Screw Systems ‘Where ele ean you find serews being used? As we noted, there are thousands of serews around your house and ca holding things together! ut there ar other examples a5 wel: here are afew to gt you started: * Meat grinders, Ol-fashioned meat grinders use a screw to push meat against a cttng head “Adjustment legs on appliances. Your washer and dryer have ssrew legs onthe batom tha It you adjust the height ofthe diferent legs to level ‘hem. So do other appliances! + Corkscrews. Acorkuerew ues the screw ation to force a metal screw nto a cork, ‘What others can you find? lowing ito be removed from abot The Antique Store and the Hardware Store + Gotu the hardware store an look tthe stock of tools and parts. Wht examples of serews can you find? + Now, go to an antique store and do the same thing. Can you find some old mechanical devices that depend onthe prineiple ofthe serew? This guide writen and illustrated by Brian Jones Lite Shop of Physics, Colorado State University (©2004 Crusader Education Inc