PASCO ME-6569 RMS_IDS KIT - Manual (Page 21)

012–06408A RMS/IDS Kit
17
Purpose
The purpose of the experiment is to quantitatively and graphically demonstrate the conservation
of momentum and the simultaneous loss of kinetic energy as a result of the collision of a cart with
a cart at rest.
Materials and Equipment Required
• (2) Rotary Motion Sensor (RMS) (CI-6538) • Dynamics Track (ME-9435A or ME-9458)
• (2) Collision Cart (ME-9454) • PASCO computer interface (700)
• (2) RMS/IDS Kit (CI-6569) • Science Workshop version 2.2 or higher
• (2) IDS Mount Accessory (CI-6692) • computer
• pages 2 & 3 of this manual
Theory
Before the collision of the two carts, the situation can be represented as follows:
where m
1
= the mass of the first cart, v
1
= the velocity of the first cart, m
2
= the mass of the
second cart, and v
2
= the velocity of the second cart, which is 0.
During an elastic collision, the kinetic energy is converted to potential energy and back into
kinetic energy as the carts bounce off one another. After the collision, the carts accelerate away
from each other, or all the kinetic energy of one cart is transferred to the other cart, which
accelerates away from the first cart has a velocity of zero. When acceleration reaches 0, the
situation can be as represented below:
The momentum of the system at any point in time is expressed as follows:
where m
1
v
1
are the mass and velocity of the first cart and m
2
v
2
are the mass and velocity of the
second. Since the momentum is conserved after the collision, the following relationship exists:
Experiment 4: Conservation of momentum and kinetic energy
in an elastic collision
m
1
v
1
+
m
2
v
2
= m
after
v
after
P = m
1
v
1
+ m
2
v
2
→
v
2
(= 0)
v
1
m
1
m
2
+
m
1
v
1after
m
2
v
2after