Lab 8 – Centripetal Acceleration

Purpose:
The purpose of this lab is to confirm the centripetal acceleration formula by analyzing the
relationship between the angular speed and the centripetal acceleration of an object.
Procedure:
1. Before enabling the power supply's output, make sure that the voltage setting is at zero
and manually rotate the beam to ensure there are not obstructions.
2. Set the accelerometer at the given distance and level the apparatus.
3. Set the voltage to zero and the current to 0.75A.
4. Switch on the processor and adjust the magnet.
5. Press the “output enable” button and slowly adjust the voltage until you can clearly read
the display (should start at about 3 volts).
6. Record the angular speed (W) in rad/s and the acceleration (a) in m/s/s.
7. Repeat the procedure and take one measurement every volt until you reach 10V. Give the
apparatus enough time to stabilize before reading.
8. Reduce the voltage gradually to zero. When the beam is sufficiently slow, carefully stop
it with your hand. Switch off the processor. Press the "output enable" button to pop it out.
Turn off the power supply.
9. Calculate the square of angular speed and plot the centripetal acceleration as a function of
the square of angular speed.
10. Calculate the relative error of your accelerometer's distance.
11. Calculate the relative uncertainty of your distance as uncertainty of slope over slope

Data and Analysis:

Omega Acc. Radius (m) 0.100
Volt. (V) (rad/s) Omega^2 (m/s/s) Slope : 0.109
5.0 15.7 246 24.7 Uncertainty : 0.001
5.5 17.7 313 30.3
6.0 18.6 346 36.1 RU 1%
6.5 20.1 404 42.3 RE 9%
7.0 21.5 462 48.5
7.5 22.9 524 55.3
8.0 24.3 590 62.5
8.5 25.7 660 69.2
9.0 27.0 729 77.0
9.5 28.3 801 84.5
10.0 29.3 858 91.4
 y = 0.1088x - 2.1691
Omega^2 vs. Centripetal Acceleration R² = 0.9991
100
90
80
70
Acc. (m/s/s)

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Omega^2 ((rad/s)^2)

Conclusion:
The objective of this lab was to confirm the centripetal acceleration formula, and through
analyzing the data with 1% uncertainty and 9% error, my data does not prove the formula to be
true. There are factors that would produce this error which include the numbers projected by the
apparatus being hard to read while fluctuating, the rotation may not have been stable every time I
read the values, and I may not have set the accelerometer perfectly level.