Kimberly Dauber Pd.
6 10/22/13
Rocket Science
Purpose:
Determine a mathematical model for the motion of a rocket over time.
Hypothesis:
The rocket will move under the influence of thrust, gravity, and air resistance at the beginning of its flight, until the engine runs out of fuel, at which point only gravity and air resistance operate on the rocket, and it follows a parabolic path.
Materials:
Rocket A8-3 Engine Camera Launch Pad Remote Balance Pasco Force Sensor
Procedure:
1. Mass an A8-3 engine. 2. Fire the A8-3 engine facing the Pasco force sensor and plot the force vs. time curve in LoggerPro. 3. Mass the expended A8-3 engine and find the difference in mass. 4. Build a rocket. 5. Mass the rocket with an A8-3 engine in it. 6. Fire the rocket, filming the launch with a camera. 7. Mass the rocket with the expended A8-3 engine.
Variables:
IndependentVelocity DependentTime ControlWeather, rocket, engine type, camera, planet
Kimberly Dauber Pd. 6 10/22/13
Data:
Time (s) Y position (m) 7.434 0.0249921911602 7.467 0.0249921911602 7.5 0.599812587845 Y velocity (m/s) 5.11077686907 11.7765664675 19.6871066782 27.5094605037 36.2193763381 42.9131642255 47.6084622673 50.4719265007 51.7098532959
7.534 1.34957832265 7.567 2.42424254254 7.6 3.79881305635
7.634 5.34832890828 7.667 7.04779790718 7.7 8.77225909723
Kimberly Dauber Pd. 6 10/22/13
Analysis:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. The rocket will get off the launching pad. 51.71 m/s 145.2 m 11.02 s (parachute did not deploy) The parachute deploys after the rocket reaches the maximum height. It will lower the velocity leaving the thrust phase; it will lower the maximum height; it will increase the total time; the parachute will still deploy after the rocket reaches its maximum height. 7. 71.1 m/s
Kimberly Dauber Pd. 6 10/22/13
Error Analysis:
One possible source of error was the fact that the video only captured the initial moments of launch. It is very difficult in the video to discern whether or not the thrust has ended by the time the rocket leaves the frame, but based on the engine specifications, it is a fair assumption that the rocket has reached terminal velocity. If it has not, the error will not be great, because it will not go much faster. Some of the energy from the rockets fuel burning went into sound and heat instead of the kinetic energy of the gasses, leading to another source of error. This means that the actual terminal velocity of the rocket lower than the expected value for the terminal velocity, leading to less air time and a lower maximum height.
Conclusion:
As the rocket flew, it was at first under the influence of thrust, gravity, and air resistance. During that period, the mass decreased with respect to time, increasing the rockets acceleration. (We chose a cubic curve for velocity vs. time because it yielded the best fit.) When the fuel was entirely expended, the rockets mass held constant and it underwent projectile motion with air resistance. Thus, it reached its maximum velocity at the end of the period of thrust and slowed down (faster than the acceleration of gravity) to a stop at its maximum height. From there, it accelerated downward until it reached its terminal velocity due to air resistance and fell the rest of the way to the ground.
Reflection:
What a difficult lab this was. Charlie and I were able to build the rocket satisfactorily, but unfortunately, we glued the parachute into the main tube. It never deployed, although the rocket launched just as well as anyone elses. I was happy that we were able to launch our rocket twice so I got a chance to press the button and we had another opportunity to collect data. Our rocket was actually defective on the second launch, though; Charlie had stepped on it, and both of us wondered whether it would fly apart under the engine thrust. Thankfully, it did not. The other most challenging part of the lab was finding a curve that fit the graph. We tried various combinations of the change in velocity due to the three forces of thrust, gravity, and air resistance, but were stymied by the latter. Even though we discovered an equation for the velocity of an object under air resistance as a function of time, we were unable to use it simply because Define Function in Logger Pro did not recognize the constant e, which I thought was strange. The other parts of the equations we tried involved the rocket equation and gravity. I believe they would have been more successful had we been able to use our equation for velocity as a function of time under air resistance.