An engineer wishes to determine the spring constant of a helical spring which is
ID: 2284778 • Letter: A
Question
An engineer wishes to determine the spring constant of a helical spring which is currently hanging vertically. She first puts enough weights on the spring to pull the coils apart. Then she finds that the elevation of the end of the spring changes from 63.5 cm to 52.6 cm when she adds several slotted lab weights whose values total 400 g.
a.) What was the change in length of the spring when the slotted weights were added? Assume a wooden meter stick is being used.
b.) What is the increase in the force exerted on the bottom of the spring due to the slotted weights?
c.) What is the result for the spring constant?
Explanation / Answer
a)
x = 63.5 - 52.6 = 10.9
For each 400g weight added the spring is expected to stretch
by 10.9cm.
b)
F = mg = 0.4kg * 9.81m/s^2 = 3.924 N
c)
F(unc) = 3.924 * 10.9 = 42.51 N