R

Harmonic oscillations of spiral springs – LEP

Springs linked in parallel and in series 1.3.26

Related topics Slotted weight, 50 g, black 02206.01 7

Spring constant, Hooke’s Law, oscillations, limit of elasticity, Tripod base -PASS- 02002.55 1
parallel springs, serial springs, use of an interface. Support rod -PASS-, square, l = 1000 mm 02028.55 1
Stand tube 02060.00 1
Rod with hook 02051.00 1
Principle and task Right angle clamp -PASS- 02040.55 2
The spring constant D is determined for different experimental Helical spring, 3 N/m 02220.00 2
set-ups from the oscillation period and the suspended mass. Helical spring, 20 N/m 02222.00 1
The PHYWE WINDOWS® Basic Software (14099.61) must
Equipment have been installed once on the used computer for the soft-
COBRA-interface 2 12100.93 1 ware to work.
PC COBRA data cable RS 232, 2 m 12100.01 1
Movement sensor with cable 12004.10 1 Problems
Adapter, BNC-socket/4 mm plug pair 07542.27 1
1. Determination of the spring constant D for different
Adapter, BNC socket - 4 mm plug 07542.20 1
springs.
Softw.COBRA Rotation (Win) 14295.61 1
Basic Softw. f. PHYWE Windows prog. 14099.61 1 2) Determination of the spring constant D for springs linked
Silk thread, 200 m 02412.00 1 in parallel.
Weight holder f. slotted weights 02204.00 1 3) Determination of the spring constant D for springs linked
Slotted weight, 10 g, black 02205.01 4 in series.

Fig. 1: Experimental set up to determine the spring constant of a spring.

PHYWE series of publications • Laboratory Experiments • Physics • PHYWE SYSTEME GMBH • 37070 Göttingen, Germany 21326 1
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LEP Harmonic oscillations of spiral springs –

1.3.26 Springs linked in parallel and in series

Set-up Recording of measurement values

— The spring constants of the single springs are measured — The diameter of the thread groove of the movement recor-
according to Fig. 1. der is entered into the input window d0 (12 mm are set as
— The electric connection of the movement recorder is car- a default value). d1 is used to convert rad to meters. If 2000
ried out according to Fig. 2 for the COBRA interface. The is entered, 1 rad corresponds to 1 meter. Each of these
thread is lead past the larger of the two thread grooves of entries must be confirmed with the “Enter” key on the key-
the movement recorder. board.
— Fig. 4 shows the set up to measure the spring constants for — Each one of the springs is set to oscillate after hanging on
springs linked in parallel and in series. different masses; for each case, the period and the spring
constant is determined. At the beginning of the experi-
ment, the movement recorder is adjusted in height so that
it is located roughly in the centre between the end of the
Procedure
spring and the hook of the weight plate. It may be neces-
— COBRA: if the COBRA interface is connected to the com- sary to shift the set up to the edge of the table so the mass
puter port COM 1 “Osc_COM 1” is clicked on twice. If the can oscillate downwards without being hampered.
serial port COM 2 is used “Osc_COM 2” is started.
— Two springs are suspended in parallel and in series with the
— The maximum sampling rate <Delta t/ms> is adjusted same load, and the total spring constant is determined.
according to computer speed. If a 486 (66 MHz) computer
— The mass suspended from the springs is deviated manual-
is used, 100 ms have proven to be a suitable choice; with
ly downwards and released, after which the <Start> button
faster computers, time may decrease, with slower compu-
is pressed. A new measurement can be initiated any time
ters, it may increase. Sampling time is set by shifting the
with the <Reset> button, the number of measurement
grey slide with the mouse cursor. Modification of <Delta
points “n” is reset to zero.
t/ms> must be repeated every time the programme is start-
ed. A too short sampling time is identified through the fol- — In total, about n = 250 measurement values are recorded
lowing effects: and then the <Stop> button is pressed.
— No measurement values are recorded. — Now the newly appearing <Edit> button is pressed. After a
few seconds, three new order buttons appear on the
— The measurement values are not equidistant on the time screen. Click on the <Edit> button The vertical lines can be
axis. captured and shifted with the mouse button. They are posi-
— The distance in time of the measurement points is much tioned in such a way that all measurement values which are
larger than the set <Delta t/ms> value. to be evaluated lie between the two lines. The <Edit> but-

Fig. 2: Connection of the movement recorder to the COBRA interface.

2 21326 PHYWE series of publications • Laboratory Experiments • Physics • PHYWE SYSTEME GMBH • 37070 Göttingen, Germany
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Harmonic oscillations of spiral springs – LEP

Springs linked in parallel and in series 1.3.26

ton is pressed again, followed by the <Evaluate> button. absolute value of the spring constant is constant within the
The computer now needs some time to evaluate all data, scope of measurement precision.
the length of which depends on the number of measure- The weaker spring (Table 2) is loaded with smaller masses
ment points. The process is indicated by a counter running so as to avoid excessive extension. It can be seen that the
backwards. value of the spring constants D also increases slightly with
— After the evaluation, a graph similar to Fig. 4 appears on increasing suspended masses. The reason for this is that
the screen. The duration of the period T and the circular relation
frequency v (w) of the oscillation are displayed. Press but-
ton <D>. If the spring constant D is well known it can be
entered to the enter field D. (“Enter” key.) The mass sus-
T = 2p ·
ABB m
D
pended from the spring is displayed. If, on the other hand,
the unknown spring constant D is to be determined, as in only is valid for small deviations. If the deviations are larger,
Fig. 4, the actual figure is to be entered in the input field for Hook’s law, which is linear, stops being valid. In extreme
the mass m. D is displayed if “0” appears in the input win- cases, the spring may even be completely overetensed, so
dow. that it will no longer recover its initial shape after the load
is relieved.
Result — If springs, also equivalent ones, are linked in parallel or in
— If a spring is deviated from its rest position, a force propor- series, the total spring constant changes characteristically.
tional to this deviation becomes effective: In case of parallel linking, the single spring forces sum up
to a total force
F = – Dx.
F = F1 + F2 = – ( D1 + D2 ) s
— If the spring oscillates, the period T is given through:

A
D = D1 + D2 .
T = 2p · BB
m .
D
The total spring constant D is thus the sum of the single
spring constants D1 and D2.
Table 1 verifies this relation. For different masses, the

Fig. 3: Experimental set up for springs linked in series and in parallel.

PHYWE series of publications • Laboratory Experiments • Physics • PHYWE SYSTEME GMBH • 37070 Göttingen, Germany 21326 3
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LEP Harmonic oscillations of spiral springs –

1.3.26 Springs linked in parallel and in series

If the springs are linked in series, the deviations s1 and s2 — The <maxphi (t)> button selects the positive oscillation
sum up to a total deviation s. The effective force F is iden- peaks and plots them beginning on the left side. The loga-
tical for both springs: rithmic oscillation decrement is obtained pressing the
<LD> button. It must be noted that the first and last three
F
F = – D 1 s1 R s 1 = – values of “maxphi (t)” are not taken into account for the
D1 evaluation through <LD>.
F — The green <Load> button allows to load measurement
F = – D2 s2 R s2 = – data into the running programme, so that the data are eva-
D2
luated again and compared to actual data. The double but-
with s = s1 + s2 we obtain ton <Exp.> <Load> is used for this. <Exp.> shows the
graph of the actual experiment, <Load> shows the loaded
1D1 2
1 measurement.
s = – + ·F
1 D2 — If a new measurement is to be carried out, the <Edit> and
or <Evaluate> buttons must be switched off to start with, after
which the <Experiment> button is pressed. After a few
1
F=– ·s seconds, the set up of the diagram already described for
1 + 1
the recording of measurement values appears. The
D1 D2
<Reset> button deletes the old measurement data. Once
and the measurement has been carried out, <Edit> is pressed.
In the screen which appears then, the <Edit> button must
1 1 1 1 be pressed to make the measurement values available for
D= or = + .
1 + 1 D D1 D2 evaluation. If the <Evaluate> button is pressed first, no
D1 D2 measurement values appear in the diagram. In this case,
the <Evaluate> button is switched off again and <Edit> is
The inverse value of the total spring constants corresponds pressed.
to the sum of the inverse values of the single spring con- — It must be taken into account that the <Edit> and the
stants. <Evaluate> buttons cancel each other. This means that the
Table 3 shows examples of measurements which fulfil the button pressed first is active, the button pressed after this
above relation. turns red, but is not activated. For this reason, it is recom-
mended to switch off the button pressed first before pres-
sing the other one.
Indications
— The <CIr> button in the measurement value recording
— If the oscillating period is very short, signal leaps or distor- screen deletes the diagram. This saves computing time
tions may occur. These can be decreased by changing the and the maximum sampling rate can be slightly increased.
sampling rate or by making the diagram invisible with Pressing this button twice will let the diagram appear again
<CIr>. Intervals recorded without faults may be cut out on the screen, the contents are deleted.
later from the measurement signal with <Edit>.
— As the recording of movement is not free of direct contact,
a small damping of the measured oscillations occurs.
— After the autoscale button situated on the left side above
the diagram has been clicked on, all measurement data are
represented so that they fill the whole screen. However, an
unfortunate choice of the subdivisions of the axes may
occur. In this case, the corresponding scaling values for the
x and y axes may be entered manually by pressing the
second or respectively the fourth button over the diagram
(cf. Fig. 4). After every change of the y axis magnitudes, the
autoscale button should be pressed, in order to adapt the
scaling factors to the actually represented values.
— The <Evaluate> button provides many evaluation possibili-
ties and requires a certain time, before all results are cal-
culated. For 2000 measurement values, this may take a
few minutes.
— The measurement values can be saved by pressing the
green <Save> button. They are written as ASCII symbols in
columns into a data file, which must have the suffix “AFD”
(ASCII File Data). The following measurement values are
found in the single columns: t / (s) running time, phi (t) /
(rad) angle, omega (t) / (rad/s) angular velocity, alpha (t) /
(rad/s2) angular acceleration, maxphi (t) I (rad) positive
peaks of the angle graph, T / (s) oscillation period.
The measurement data can easily be submitted to further
processing or printed out under DOS or WINDOWS®. Fig. 4: Typical curve to determine spring constants.

4 21326 PHYWE series of publications • Laboratory Experiments • Physics • PHYWE SYSTEME GMBH • 37070 Göttingen, Germany
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Harmonic oscillations of spiral springs – LEP

Springs linked in parallel and in series 1.3.26

— An arbitrary text to comment or explain the experiment can Table 2

be entered in the comment line on the upper edge of the
screen, before a hardcopy printout is made. The hardcopy m/g D / N/m T/s
is printed out on the connected printer when <Hardcopy>
is pressed. Before printing out a hardcopy, it is recommen- 60 3.066 0.88
ded to change the colours of the diagram, in order to save 80 3.157 1.00
the ink ribbon or the cartridge of the printer. Diagram
colours can be modified pressing the colour selection but- 100 3.221 1.11
ton situated on the right side above the diagram. The fol-
lowing colour combinations are recommended: 150 3.430 1.31
Scope: instead of black - white
Data: instead of yellow - black.
Table 3
— Quitting the programme: if the programme is in the meas- Spring, Dmeasured / Dcalculated / suspended
urement value recording mode, it is sufficient to click twice linking N/m N/m Mass / g
at the upper left corner of the screen with the left mouse
button. If not, the <Experiment> key must be pressed first, Spring 1 2.922 – 60
so the programme will return to the measurement value
recording mode. Spring 2 3.216 – 60

Spring 3 20.146 – 350

Table 1 Spring 1, 2
1.74 1.53 60
series
m/g D / N/m T/s
Spring 1, 3
2.457 2.55 60
250 20.152 0.70 series

300 20.232 0.77 Spring 1, 2

6.066 6.138 110
parallel
350 20.146 0.83
Spring 1, 3
22.018 23.068 310
400 19.979 0.89 parallel

PHYWE series of publications • Laboratory Experiments • Physics • PHYWE SYSTEME GMBH • 37070 Göttingen, Germany 21326 5