Thursday, December 22, 2011

Does mass affect the value of the coefficient of friction?I have a lab that's due this Friday and its to find the coefficient of kinetic...

Coefficient of friction does not depend on the mass applied. it depends only on the area and nature of two surfaces in contact. However, the frictional force exerted does depend on the the normal force, which in turn may depend on the mass.


The coefficient of friction is defined as normal force divides by frictional force. Thus:


Coefficient of friction = Fnormal/Fapplied


As per the data of the experiment conducted by you, which you have given in your question, the values of Fnormal are:


(1) 2.67 (2.67) N, (2) 4.65 (2.86) N, (3) 6.60 (3.06) N, (4) 7.58 (3.16) N, and (5) 9.54 (3.36) N.


Please note some of the values of Fnormal calculated by you are not correct. Fnormal is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration due to gravity (9.81). I have given above the correct values with values calculated by you in parenthesis.


And the correspoding value of Fapplied are:


(1) 1.625 N, (2) 2.825 N, (3) 4.50 N, (4) 5.125 N, and (5) 6.5 N.


Based on these values we can calculate 5 different values of coefficient of friction as follows:


(1) Coefficient of friction = Fapplied/Fnormal = 1.625/2.67 = 0.61


(2) Coefficient of friction = Fapplied/Fnormal = 2.825/4.65 = 0.61


(3) Coefficient of friction = Fapplied/Fnormal = 4.50/6.60 = 0.68


(4) Coefficient of friction = Fapplied/Fnormal = 5.125/7.58 = 0.68


(5) Coefficient of friction = Fapplied/Fnormal = 6.5/9.54 = 0.68

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