Abstract Swimming pools for physical therapy were researched and modeled by a submerged mass hanging from a spring.

The buoyant force on the submerged mass was determined when the mass was varied and when the volume submerged was varied. The volume of the submerged mass was found to be directly correlated to the buoyant force

Introduction
A sports medicine group is researching physical therapy applications of swimming pools. The researchers are interested in whether the buoyant force depends on the mass of the person submerged in water or the volume of the submerged person. In order to model this situation, metal cylindrical shaped masses were hung from a spring and the spring extension measured when different portions of the mass were submerged in water. Additional measurements of the spring extension were taken also using metal masses of the same size and shape, but different mass. This was done to determine whether the buoyant force was due to the volume or mass of the submerged object.

Prediction
As shown in Figure 1, the forces acting on the submerged metal cylinder are the spring force (Fs), buoyant force (Fb), and the weight of the metal cylinder (W). The Buoyant force will be acting in the same direction as the spring force and opposite the weight. Since this system is at equilibrium, Newtons second law gives, Fs + F b W = 0 The relationship between Fs and the spring extension, Fs = K where K is the spring constant. is

The relationship between Fb and the volume of the object submerged is Fb = where P0 is the density of water, V is the volume of object submerged, and g is the gravitational constant. Thus, the relation between the spring extension to the submerged volume and weight is,

Procedure A metal cylindrical mass was attached to a spring and submerged in water as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The model used for this experiment. Fs is the spring force, Fb is the buoyant force, and W is the weight of the metal mass.

The spring extension was measured by attaching the metal masses, without submerging them in water, to the spring. This allowed for the spring constant, K, to be determined by dividing the weight of the mass by the spring extension. To determine the effect of mass on the buoyant force, additional mass was added to an initial mass of 50 grams in 20 gram increments while the volume submerged was kept constant. Then the spring extension was measured. To determine the effect of the volume on the buoyant force, the mass was held constant at 100 grams while increasing the portion of the mass submerged in water. In order to do this, five 10 gram masses were added to an initial mass of 50 grams. Then the diameter and the height of a single 10 gram metal mass were found. It was assumed that the other four 10 gram masses had the same diameter and height. Using the diameter and height, the volume of metal mass submerged could be found using the equation for the volume of a cylinder,

Then the spring extension was measured.

Data Mass (grams) 50 60 70 80 90 100 Spring Extension (m) Spring Constant (N/m) 0.070+/- 0.01 7 +/- 1 0.095 +/- 0.01 6.19 +/- 0.65 0.115 +/- 0.01 5.97 +/- 0.52 0.130 +/- 0.01 6.03 +/- 0.46 0.145 +/- 0.01 6.08 +/- 0.42 0.160 +/- 0.01 6.13 +/- 0.38 Average 6.23 +/- 0.57 Table 1: Spring extension when hanging mass was varied and calculated spring constants. Length of non-stretched spring was 0.065 m. No uncertainty measurement was done for the mass. The uncertainties for all the spring extensions were estimated to be 0.01 m since measurements were accurate to 0.01m. The uncertainties of the spring constants were determined by dividing the Weight by both the high and low value for the spring extension and taking the difference. The average spring constant is given as well in N/m. Weight (N) 0.490 0.588 0.686 0.784 0.882 0.980

Figure 2: Comparison of experimental and theoretical buoyancy when weight of hanging mass was varied. The theoretical buoyancy comes from the Fb = equation. Experimental buoyancy was determined by Fb = W-Fs.

Analysis The researchers wanted to answer the question of whether the buoyant force was related to the mass of the person submerged or the volume of the person submerged. Experimental buoyancy force given by W-Fs was compared to the theoretical buoyancy. The data gathered indicates that the volume of the person submerged is more important than their mass. This can be seen in Figure 3 since as the weight of the person increases, so does the buoyancy force. In Figure 2 the buoyant force seems to increase with weight as well while the theoretical calculation predicted the buoyant force to stay constant. First, this misleading because there was clearly experimental error and second there was a decrease in buoyant force shortly thereafter. This indicates that despite the deviations from the theoretical calculation, the

buoyant force should be constant over a large enough range. Thus, in the future, this experiment could be improved by gathering more data points.

Conclusion

In order to research the physical therapy applications of swimming pools, a model was constructed that involved hanging a mass from a spring and submerging a portion of it into the water. This was done to determine whether the mass or the volume of the submerged object was more important to the buoyant force. As predicted, the spring extension is related to the weight and volume submerged by the following equation

The volume of the submerged object was found to be related to buoyant force not the mass of the submerged object. For application of physical therapy, different people would require different depths of the pool. In order to determine this depth, the density of the person would have be determined in order to reduce a persons perceived weight by a certain amount.