Conservation of Momentum Within an Inelastic Experiment

Using the Impulsifier to Collide a Bullet and a Car

Introduction
Momentum is found in most every scenario that involves movement or
change. Just like energy, momentum is conserved never created or destroyed. It
transfers through different, in and out of systems of the world; momentum will
never deplete or come to a loss, as it is constant. By creating an inelastic collision
with combining a toy car and an air-soft bullet (Refer to Photo A), every variable is
needed to be measured to prove the hypothesis that momentum will remain
constant from the initial set up to after the collision takes place.

Procedure
To perform this inelastic experiment, one will need the following equipment: a
nerf gun, nerf bullet, 2 working photogrates with a reader, a toy car, car track, 3x3
velcro strips, an index card, along with scissors and tape. The main idea of this lab
is to collect data from the bullet striking the back end of the car and sticking
together. In order to get the bullet and car to stick, place one square of velcro on
each of the objects. To measure the speed of the objects, a strip of the index card
will be hanging off of the bullet and the car for the photogates to register. Now take
the car with the velcro and paper strip, set a balance scale to 0, and measure in
grams. Repeat for the bullet with the velcro and paper strip. It is important to keep
all variables constant, and to use the same equipment (which means the same
masses) every time.
Photo A

For the set up, the gun will be placed on one side of the setup, and the car
will be towards the end. Place all objects at the specific measurements as Photo B
suggests. To begin, turn on the photograte reader, and be sure both gates are on (a
red light will illuminate when plugged in). Reset any previous times on the reader.

Have one person pull back the lever on the gun. With steady hands, pull the trigger
to shoot the bullet. The bullet should shoot through the first photogate and land on
the back of the car, sticking because of the velcro. The car, before was unmoving,
should now move foward. Allow for the objects to stop on their own; this should not
take long. At last, trial one has been completed. 30 trials should be completed in
total, but before moving on to reset the equipment, it is important to not forget to
record the results.
Photo B

From the trial, the time in seconds representing the speed of the bullet has
been collected. To view this, simply look at the number on the photogate reader.
The time has also been recorded for the car and bullet together. The other
measurement acquired was the change in distance, which can be seen using the
meter stick. Record all data.

Data and Observations

During the experiment, the bullet shoots towards the car with a popping
sound from the gun, almost too fast to see. It lands onto the back of the car, and

immediately the car goes rolling down the flat track, eventually coming to a
complete stop again. The time of both speeds are very fast, though the bullet is
consistently faster than the car and bullet combination. There is a visible difference
in these speeds, and for every trial, this trend remains constant. When the car rolls
after the collision, the track hardly shakes. Each experiment saw the same general
trends, producing precise results.

Measurements
Object / Equipment

Mass (g)

Bullet (with Velcro and Paper)

1.7

Car (with Velcro and Paper)

34.6

Car and Bullet Combination

36.3

Experiment 1
Trial #

Time of Photogate A Bullet (Seconds)

Time of Photogate B Car and Bullet

(Seconds)

Change in
Distance (cm)

1 .0012

.0343

23.5

2 .0017

.0313

24

3 .0012

.0333

25

4 .0019

.0343

22.5

5 .0015

.0336

22

6 .0015

.0339

22

7 .0015

.0325

24.5

8 .0013

.0335

22.5

9 .0015

.0342

27.5

10 .0014

.0302

24

.03311

23.75

Average: .00146

Experiment 2

Trial #

Time of Photogate A Bullet (Seconds)

Time of Photogate B Car and Bullet

(Seconds)

Change in
Distance (cm)

1 .0011

.0420

19

2 .0014

.0373

22.5

3 .0010

.0374

21

4 .0005

.0358

21

5 .0010

.0298

24.5

6 .0011

.0294

23.5

7 .0008

.0246

26

8 .0009

.0288

20

9 .0010

.0336

21

10 .0015

.0185

17

.03172

21.55

Average: .00103

Experiment 3
Trial #

Time of Photogate A Bullet (Seconds)

Time of Photogate B Car and Bullet

(Seconds)

Change in
Distance (cm)

1 .0061

.0390

14

2 .0048

.0318

21

3 .0061

.0382

20

4 .0061

.0369

24

5 .0064

.0313

18

6 .0062

.0347

19

7 .0069

.0315

18

8 .0065

.0283

21

9 .0063

.0358

17

10 .0047
Average: .00601

.0214

26

.03289

19.8

Calculations and Analysis

To prove momentum is conserved in an inelastic collision, an inelastic
collision set-up is replicated as demonstrated above. The variables needed to be
measured include the of mass of objects involved (toy car with Velcro, bullet with
Velcro) and the velocity of those objects before and after the collision. This
equation, MaVa + MbVb = MaVa + MbVb , represents the mass and velocities of
two objects, A and B. As momentum is defined as The quantity of motion of a
moving body, measured as a mass of its mass and velocity, the equation solves for
momentum. This can be broken down int Momentum = MV. However in the lab, the
masses were measured before hand, but we did not measure velocity. This is
because that is immeasurable using the setup produced; V = (change in X)/t. Both
delta X and the time in seconds were measured, which will solve for velocity, and be
applied in the conservation of momentum equation. In theory, the calculated
momentum before and after the collision should be equal to each other to prove
that in this inelastic collision, momentum was conserved. To understand if the data
given agrees, one can calculate percent error, which is the Initial (Value - Final
Value)/Final Value.
Experiment 1
Va = (.2375 m)/(.00146 s) = 162.67 m/s
Vb = (.2375 m )/(.03311 s) = 7.17 m/s
Momentum Before:
Bullet = (.0017 kg)(209.22 m/s) = .276539 mkg/s
Car = (.0346 kg)(0 m/s) = 0 mkg/s
Total = .276539 mkg/s
Momentum After:
Car and Bullet combination = (.0363 kg)(7.17 m/s) = .260271
mkg/s
Initial and Final Momentum Comparisons
.276539 mkg/s = .260271 mkg/s

-5.88 % error

Experiment 2
Va = (.2155 m)/(.00103 s) = 209.22 m/s
Vb = (.2155 m)/(.03172 s) = 6.79 m/s
Momentum Before:
Bullet = (.0017 kg)(209.22 m/s) = .35567 mkg/s
Car = (.0346 kg)(0 m/s) = 0 mkg/s
Total = .35567 mkg/s
Momentum After:
Car and Bullet combination = (.0363 kg)(6.79 m/s) = .246477
mkg/s
Initial and Final Momentum Comparisons
.35567 mkg/s = .218526 mkg/s
-30.7% error

Experiment 3
Va = (.198 m)/(.00601 s) = 32.94 m/s
Vb = (.198 m)/(.03289 s) = 6.02 m/s
Momentum Before:
Bullet = (.0017 kg)(32.94 m/s) = .055998 mkg/s
Car = (.0346 kg)(0 m/s) = 0 mkg/s
Total = .055998 mkg/s
Momentum After:
Car and Bullet combination = (.0363 kg)(6.02 m/s) = .218526
mkg/s
Initial and Final Momentum Comparisons

.055998 mkg/s = .218526 mkg/s

290% error

Conclusion
The calculated momentum before and after an inelastic collision is indeed
conserved. Though momentum do not completely equal, such as in experiment 1
with .276539 mkg/s = .260271 mkg/s , the small differences is taken in account by
the -5.88% error. The negative is due to the system having less momentum after
the collision, since it loses some. The small loss of .01628 mkg/s however is
completely logical, due to experimental errors such as friction between the wheels
and the track, air resistance on the index card strip and velcro, misplacement of
bullet transferring energy into the track rather than the car itself (due to the angle
of the gun), and so forth. All of these errors resulted in creating a transfer of
momentum in other objects than the two being measured. This proves that
momentum before would be equal to the momentum after, and all would be
conserved in a perfect system. Newtons third law can even be applied to the
conservation of momentum, as For every action, there is an equal and opposite
reaction the size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the
second object.