Question

A pendulum is formed by taking a 2.0 kg mass and hanging it from the ceiling using a steel wire with a diameter of 1.1 mm. it is observed that the wire stretches by 0.05 mm under the weight of the mass. what is the period of oscillation of the pendulum?

Answer 1

Answer: 1.39 s

Explanation:

We can solve this problem with the following equations:

$\frac{\Delta l}{l_{o}}=\frac{F}{AY}$ (1)

$T=2 \pi \sqrt{\frac{l_{o}}{g}}$ (2)

Where:

$\Delta l=0.05 mm=5(10)^{-5} m$ is the length the steel wire streches (taking into account 1mm=0.001 m)

$l_{o}$ is the length of the steel wire before being streched

$F=mg=(2 kg)(9.8 m/s^{2})=19.6 N$ is the force due gravity (the weight) acting on the pendulum with mass $m=2 kg$

$A$ is the transversal area of the wire

$Y=2(10)^{11} Pa$ is the Young modulus for steel

$T$ is the period of the pendulum

$g=9.8 m/s^{2}$ is the acceleration due gravity

Knowing this, let's begin by finding $A$:

$A=\pi r^{2}=\pi (\frac{d}{2})^{2}=\pi \frac{d^{2}}{4}$ (3)

Where $d=1.1 mm=0.0011 m$ is the diameter of the wire

$A=\pi \frac{(0.0011 m)^{2}}{4}$ (4)

$A=9.5(10)^{-7}m^{2}$ (5)

Knowing this area we can isolate $l_{o}$ from (1):

$l_{o}=\frac{\Delta l AY}{F}$ (6)

And substitute $l_{o}$ in (2):

$T=2 \pi \sqrt{\frac{\frac{\Delta l AY}{F}}{g}}$ (7)

$T=2 \pi \sqrt{\frac{\frac{(5(10)^{-5} m)(9.5(10)^{-7}m^{2})(2(10)^{11} Pa)}{2(10)^{11} Pa}}{9.8 m/s^{2}}}$ (8)

Finally:

$T=1.39 s$