Friday, December 27, 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014


The spirit of the horse is recognized to be the Chinese people's ethos – making unremitting efforts to improve themselves. It is energetic, bright, warm-hearted, intelligent and able. Ancient people liked to designate an able person as 'Qianli Ma', a horse that covers a thousand li a day (one li equals 500 meters).

Thursday, December 12, 2013

DENSITY & BUOYANCY TEST!!!

  • Take the test from the link below.  
  • You may use only notes in your note book
  • You can take the test 2 times only!  
  • Record both test scores on a sheet of papeR
  • Titled - DENSITY & BUOYANCY TEST
  • DUE:  Wednesday, 12/18
  • Turn into drawer

Click on this link:  DENSITY & BUOYANCY TEST

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

AIR RESISTANCE, GRAVITY, & AIRPLANE FORCES - REVIEW

REVIEW:

REVIEW THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES & YOUR NOTES FOR QUIZ ON AIR RESISTANCE & FORCE ON AIRPLANE
QUIZ:  Tuesday, 12/17

TYPES OF FORCE #1


TYPES OF FORCE #2


TYPES OF FORCE #3


An airplane flying straight and level at a constant speed has four forces acting on it: lift, drag, weight and thrust. Weight and mass are not the same thing. 
Mass is a measure of the amount of matter in an object, while weight factors in the downward pull of gravity on an object.

In light aircraft, piston engines drive propellers. Propellers deflect air backward, and this air pushes back, creating thrust. The same principle applies to jet engines, which blast hot, expanding gases to the rear of the plane and, in turn, get pushed back by those same gases.

The forces acting on a plane work in opposing pairs. Weight opposes lift, drag opposes thrust. During steady, level flight, the pilot adjusts the engine power and various control surfaces to keep the opposing forces in balance.

Birds figured it out long before humans: You gotta have wings if you're going to fly. Wings create lift, the upward-acting force that gets your feet off the ground.

Wing sounds so simple, but airfoil soars with sophistication. Technically speaking, an airfoil is the shape of the wing -- a curved surface with a rounded leading edge and a sharp trailing edge.

Daniel Bernoulli and his famous principle get a lot of attention when it comes to lift. A lot of aviation enthusiasts would argue, however, that Bernoulli is only part of the lift story though.

Move over Bernoulli, Newton wants to fly this plane. According to authors Anderson and Eberhardt, Newton's third law of motion is perfectly capable of explaining how a wing works: Grossly simplified, it says that the wing pushes the air down, so the air pushes the wing up.

On an airfoil, the amount of curvature is determined by the camber line. Airfoils with positive camber -- the upper surface curves more than the lower surface -- generate better lift.

For an airfoil to work, the leading edge of the wing must be inclined upward. The more it's inclined, the greater the angle of attack. Put another way, the angle of attack is the angle between the chord, or midline, of an airfoil and the direction of the surrounding undisturbed flow of gas or liquid.

The angle of attack is related to the amount of lift. Lift will increase as the angle of attack is increased -- up to a point (called the critical angle of attack). For most aircraft, lift will be maximized if the angle of attack remains below 17 degrees.

While it's true that increasing the angle of attack increases lift, it's also true that you can have too much of a good thing. When the angle of attack becomes too steep, the wing can't generate lift, and the aircraft stalls.

Elevators are hinged flaps located on the tail of the plane. Raising the elevators deflects air downward, which pushes the tail down (and the nose up). Lowering the elevators pushes the tail up (and the nose down).


AIR RESISTANCE

GRAVITY


Every object in the Universe attracts every other object in the universe.  This invisible force for masses to move toward each other is called Gravity.

When you weight yourself, your weight may be around 30kg to maybe 50kg because of Gravity. 

Your weight is the result from the product of the force of gravity and the mass of you.

Why two masses separated in space have a gravitational attraction to one another remains unknown, despite much research and various theories.

Here are some important facts about gravity:
Using scientific languageWhich translate to...
Gravity is the experience of two particles mutually attracting each other along the line joining them.Imagine yourself deep in space and you are standing next to a brick.When you are running in a marathon, you are running in a particular direction, but gravity has no particular direction, but along the path joining you and that brick.
Spherically symmetric objects interact gravitationally as if their mass were located at their centers.An example of a spherically symmetric object is the Earth.  Earth attracts as if it's mass were located at the centre of Earth.
It is gravity which causes the centripetal acceleration when a satellite moves in a circular orbit.Gravity is what allows a satellite to move in a circular orbit around earth.
For a particular radius of circular orbit there is only one possible speed for a stable satellite orbit.If a satellite wants to orbit 2,000km above Earth, there is only one speed at which it can stably orbit.



HOW MUCH WOULD WEIGHT ELSEWHERE?  (click on the link)








Monday, December 9, 2013

DENSITY & ARCHIMEDES??? - MODULE #3

Could you please explain density
What is it? What is the concept of D = M over V?

Density is how much mass a material has for a given volume.  
  • A measure of the compactness of the molecules of a material.  The closer the particle are to one another the higher the density of the material.  The mass per unit of volume of a material.
D = m/v

D = density
m = mass
v = volume

Mass = The amount of matter inside an object.  It does not change based on gravity.  It is usually measured in grams or kgrams.

Volume = the amount of space an object occupies.  Usually measured in L, ml, or cm3 using a graduated cylinder.

Think about a sponge. Most artificial sponges today are made of a foamed plastic. Assume you have a one pound sponge. If you melt it down to a plastic soup with all the bubbles gone, it will be much smaller, but it will still weigh one pound. It is now denser. 

We use water as sort of a standard for density. We say water has a density of 1. If something weighs twice as much as the same volume of water we say its density is two. 
  • This is really handy for figuring out all sorts of things like if something will float or not. 
Anything that has a density less than 1 floats. Anything that has a density higher than 1 sinks. 

Ice is ~12% less dense than water so ice floats. Water gets bigger when it freezes so ice is less dense than water. It's a good thing too since life probably would not exist if that were not the case. A U.S. air craft carrier weighs more than 200,000,000 pounds, but I know its density is still less than one. I know this without even asking anyone since I have seen them floating.


An object that is very dense is usually very heavy for its size. 
  • For example, a bowling ball is more dense than a beach ball. Sometimes, the density of an object can change, like when you pack a snowball - the snow starts out light and fluffy and then you compress it to a higher density. 
Essentially, the more mass you pack in to a smaller volume, the higher the density.

Archimedes' Principle

  • If the weight of the water displaced is less than the weight of the object, the object will sink

  • Otherwise the object will float, with the weight of the water displaced equal to the weight of the object.

Archimedes' Principle explains why steel ships float


AFTER WATCHING THE ARCHIMEDES' PRINCIPLE VIDEO - 
  • CLICK ON THE "THINK" BUTTON RIGHT COLUMN.
    • ANSWER THE QUESTIONS on a piece of notebook paper & turn into the drawer.
DENSITY

DENISTY & CALCULATING VOLUME - MODULE #2


 

Find the Volume of a Cube  (L x W x H)





  1. 1
    Measure one side of the cube. If you already know the length of one side of the cube, you can move on. If not, use a ruler to measure the side of the cube. Let's say the side of the cube is 2 inches long.

  2. 2
    Cube the length of the side. Finding the volume of a cube really means finding the area of the base and then multiplying it by its height. Since the area of the base is found by multiplying the length and the width, and the length and the width of a cube are the same, and so is the height, all you have to do is cube the length of one side to find the volume. 2 x 2 x 2, or 23 = 8. 
 
3
State your answer in cubic units. Since volume is the measure of three-dimensional space, you'll have to state your answer in cubic units. Since the original Measurements were made in inches, your final answer should be 8 in.3

STEPS FOR FINDING THE VOLUME OF AN IRREGULAR OBJECT

Steps

  1. 1
    Fill up the graduated cylinder about half way with water. Be sure to tilt the cylinder while pouring water to help prevent bubbles from forming.
    Ad
  2. 2
    Set down the cylinder on a flat surface at room temperature. If there are bubbles present, wait a few moments for them to pop. Align your eyes with the water level, and take the measurement.
  3. 3
    Remember or write down the measurement you took.
  4. 4
    Tilt the cylinder, and gently slide the object down until it its fully submerged.
  5. 5
    Once again, align your eyes with the water level, and take the new measurement.
  6. 6
    Subtract the new measurement from the original. The difference, is the volume of the object.

DENSITY ACTIVITY





DENSITY & BUOYANCY - MODULE #1




The density of a gas will change to fill a container
Density 

Density is a measurement of how solid something is.  Specifically it is the mass per unit volume of a substance


Density is how much things are packed together. 

  • It tells you how much stuff (mass) is found in a certain amount of space or volume (D=m/V). 
  • Imagine a solid cube that is one centimeter tall, one centimeter wide, and one centimeter long. If that cube is filled with Styrofoam, it is light. If it is filled with lead (Pb), it is heavy. The lead is heavier because it has a higher densitythan Styrofoam.
  • If you have two objects of the exact same size (volume), the more dense object will weigh more than the less dense object. 
  • Because all objects are made out of molecules, it is possible to determine how tightly packed those molecules are. This is known as density
  • The more tightly packed the molecules of an object, liquid or gas are, the more dense we say they are.
  • The density of a solid object will remain the same no matter where we place the object. 
  • The density of a liquid will change only slightly. However, the density of a gas changes drastically.

  • A gas will expand to fill whatever space it is provided. Thus, if we take a certain amount of gas out of one container and place it into another container that is twice as large the gas will expand, filling the larger container. We still have the same number of gas molecules, but now, they are filling a much larger area. Thus, the gas is half as dense as it was, or in other words, there is twice as much space between the molecules as there was in the smaller container.
So there are two things contributing to density:

  1. The mass of the atoms or molecules that makes up the material.
  2. The volume or amount of space the material takes up. If the molecules or atoms are “packed” in more closely, it will be more dense.

  • Example:  styrofoam is a low density material. Even a large styrofoam container does not weigh much. The molecules in the styrofoam do not have much mass and there is a lot of space between them. 
  •  A brick, on the other hand, is much more dense. Even a moderate sized brick can be pretty heavy. This is because the molecules which make up the rock have more mass and are packed more closely together.
  •  
DENSITY & BUOYANCY
Density and Buoyancy are closely related. 
  • A less dense substance will float on a more dense substance.
Take a look at the two boxes below. Each box has the same volume. 
If each ball has the same mass, which box would weigh more? Why?


 
We can calculate density using the formula: 
Density= Mass/Volume
 
 The mass and volume of two blocks. 
 
Block I  
Mass = 79.4 grams Volume=29.8 cubic cm.
Block II  
Mass= 25.4 grams Volume=29.8 cubic cm.
 
Calculate the density for each block.
answer for Block I

________________grams/cubic cm. 
 answer for Block II: 

________________grams/cubic cm.


Using the table below it is now possible for you to determine what substance makes up each block.

The densities for some common substances are:

Block I is made of _________________
Block II is made of _________________


BUOYANCY BASICS
Buoyancy is the ability of an object to float in a liquid
  • The relation of the object's weight to the weight of the water displaced is what determines if the object will float; 
  • although the size and shape of the object do have an effect, they are not the primary reason why an object floats or sinks. 
  • If an object displaces more water than its weight, it will float. Buoyancy is an important factor in the design of many objects and in a number of water-based activities, such as boating or scuba diving.  

 
What is buoyancy?
 As you OR an object floats, the weight of you or the object presses down into the water; the water presses back, pushing you up.



When you get into the pool, your body displaces a volume of water (the "hole" in the water that your body fits into). As long as the water your body displaces weighs more than you do, you float.

This is basically Archimedes' Law.

You weigh less than the water you're in, because your lungs are full of air, like a balloon, and like a balloon, the air in your lungs lifts you to the surface naturally.
Why don't we float alike?
Everyone floats in the water at their own natural level.






Different factors contribute to how high — or low — in the water you float.

  • First, your body type has a lot to do with your buoyancy. 
    • Fat floats, as you've probably heard, while your bones and muscles, denser than fat, are not as willing to float.
    • Also, the relative size of your lungs to the rest of your body determines how high in the water your body will float.

  • Second, the density of the water is a factor. 
    • Saltier water weighs more per unit of volume, so you will float higher in saltier water (the Red Sea, for instance) than you would in fresh water.

  • Finally, there is a curious phenomenon of apparently greater buoyancy — for some people — in deep water.



 

Basics 1
When you place a block of wood in a pail of water, the block displaces some of the water, and the water level goes up. If you could weigh the water that the wood displaces, you would find that its weight equals the weight of the wood.


Basics 2
This doesn't mean that if you had a few blocks of wood that were exactly the same size and shape, they would each displace the same amount of water. A block of wood made of oak, for example, sits deeper in the water (and therefore displaces more of the water) than does a block of pine. The reason is that it's heavier for its size, or denser—in this case, the molecules that make it up are more closely packed together than the molecules that make up the pine.


Basics 3
If you could somehow keep increasing the density of the block, it would sink lower and lower into the water. When its density increased enough to displace an amount of water whose weight was equal to the weight of the block, it would, in a sense, become weightless in the water.

Making the block just slightly denser would cause it to sink to the bottom.
 _________________________________________Before watching the following video clips - have your vocab cards ready.  You can double check your understanding of the terms used by easily checking your vocab cards.

BUOYANCY - ACTIVITY

BUOYANCY - VIDEO CLIP

BUOYANCY FORCE & DENSITY

Buoyant Force - Why does a ship float? 



BUOYANCY

Thursday, December 5, 2013

SMITHSONIAN AIRPLANE ADVENTURE

SMITHSONIAN AIRPLANE INFORMATIONS

READ: open the highlighted link above & read the following topics listed below.

FORCES OF FLIGHT

  • The Four Forces
  • We Aren't Built to Fly
GRAVITY & AIR
  • Gravity keeps us Down to Earth
  • Air is Stuff
  • Buoyancy
AERODYNAMICS
  • Air Motion
  • Friction Drag
  • Shock Waves
  • Vortex Drag
PROPULSION 

STRUCTURES & MATERIALS
  • Materials
ACTIVITIES
  • How Wings Work
  • Forces of Flight

Watch the following video's to clarify the forces.  
(click on the highlighted word)

DRAG - Drag is the force that acts opposite to the direction of motion. Drag is caused by friction and differences in air pressure.


Lift is the force that acts at a right angle to the direction of motion through the air. Lift is created by differences in air pressure.




THRUST Thrust is the force that propels a flying machine in the direction of motion. Engines produce Thrust.

WEIGHT - Weight is the force of gravity. It acts in a downward direction—toward the center of the Earth.

Weight is the force of gravity. It acts in a downward direction—toward the center of the Earth.




When an airplane is flying straight and level at a constant speed, the lift it produces balances its weight, and the thrust it produces balances its drag. However, this balance of forces changes as the airplane rises and descends, as it speeds up and slows down, and as it turns. 

Monday, December 2, 2013

FORCES IN ACTION - PAPER AIRPLANE PROJECT

 4 MAIN FORCES ACTING ON A PAPER or REAL AIRPLANE


There are 4 main forces that act on a paper airplane (or a real airplane for that matter) while it is flying.
These are the forces:



  • Lift
  • Gravity
  • Thrust
  • Drag

Lift is the force that keeps the airplane in the air. Without lift the plane would not fly. Lift can be a very complicated force to explain, but here are two basic models to give an intuitive understanding.

1.  Bernoulli's Principle (named after Swiss Physicist Daniel Bernoulli)
If you ever look closely at the wings of an airplane from the side, you will notice that they are not flat. The wing has a curved shape to it. This shape is called an airfoilAirfoils are specially designed to produce lift.
To understand how Bernoulli's principle causes lift
  • we must first understand that air usually presses equally on all sides of an object. Suppose that as the plane flies forward, the approaching air splits up when it hits the leading (front) edge of the wing and rejoins at the trailing (back) edge of the wing. The airfoil shape causes the air to go farther over the top of the wing than under the bottom, both in the same amount if time. This means the air on top of the wing must move faster. 
  •  When air speeds up, its pressure gets lower. Since the air pressure on top of the wing is lower than the air pressure on the bottom of the wing, the wing produces lift! This phenomenon is called Bernoulli's principle.


2. Newtonian Explanation
The famous scientist Sir Isaac Newton stated in his famous third law that ,"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." 
  • Newtonian lift largely depends on the tilt of the wing or "angle of attack".
  • If the leading edge of the wing is pointing upward, the bottom surface is deflecting oncoming air downward. 
  • When this air bounces off the bottom surface of the wing (action), it pushes the wing upward (reaction)...or produces lift.




Gravity is a force that we are all familiar with. It's what causes any object you throw into the air to come back to the ground. Gravity is also what keeps us on the ground. Without gravity, we would all float away into space! With airplanes, gravity works against lift by pulling the airplane toward the ground.


Thrust is the force that causes the plane to move forward through the air
  • In a real airplane, this is produced by the turning propellers or jet engine. 
  • With a paper airplane, the thrust is produced when you throw the plane into the air. Without thrust, planes could not produce lift.

Drag is the force that tries to slow the airplane down.  
  • Drag is produced when air flowing over the plane causes friction. When the plane is flying, it must push oncoming air out of the way. As this air is pushed around the plane, it bumps into other air molecules. Air close to the surface of the airplane also wants to try to stick to it. All of this causes friction. Have you ever ridden your bike on a windy day? The wind hitting you in the face that makes it hard to keep moving is drag.
Lift and Thrust help to keep a plane flying

Gravity and Drag work against it

We can't do anything to change gravity, but we can try to minimize drag and increase lift and thrust. This will make a paper airplane fly well. 


REVIEW
 [as you review these notes make sure you understand the vocabulary terms used.]
 

THRUST:

  • Thrust is the force which moves an aircraft through the air. 
    Thrust is used to overcome the drag of an airplane, and to overcome the weight of a rocket.
    Thrust is generated by the engines of the aircraft through some kind of propulsion system.
    Thrust is a mechanical force, so the propulsion system must be in physical contact with a working fluid to produce thrust. Since thrust is a force, it is a vector quantity having both a magnitude and a direction.

    Remember:  
    A vector quantity is a quantity that is fully described by both magnitude and direction

    Mechanical force is an energy that requires a medium for it to travel. When this force is applied on an object, it can cause it to bend, scratch it, or break the object. The force that opposes mechanical energy is called friction energy.
DRAG: 



Drag is the aerodynamic force that opposes an aircraft's motion through the air. 
Drag is generated by every part of the airplane (even the engines!). How is drag generated?

Drag is a mechanical force
It is generated by the interaction and contact of a solid body with a fluid (liquid or gas). It is not generated by a force field, in the sense of a gravitational field or an electromagnetic field, where one object can affect another object without being in physical contact. 

For drag to be generated, the solid body must be in contact with the fluid. If there is no fluid, there is no drag. 
Drag is generated by the difference in velocity between the solid object and the fluid. There must be motion between the object and the fluid. If there is no motion, there is no drag. It makes no difference whether the object moves through a static fluid or whether the fluid moves past a static solid object.
Drag is a force and is therefore a vector quantity having both a magnitude and a direction. Drag acts in a direction that is opposite to the motion of the aircraft. 


LIFT:


Lift is the force that directly opposes the weight of an airplane and holds the airplane in the air. 

Lift is generated by every part of the airplane, but most of the lift on a normal airliner is generated by the wings. 

Lift is a mechanical aerodynamic force produced by the motion of the airplane through the air. 

Because lift is a force, it is a vector quantity, having both a magnitude and a direction associated with it. 
Lift acts through the center of pressure of the object and is directed perpendicular to the flow direction. There are several factors which affect the magnitude of lift.

NO FLUID, NO LIFT
Lift is a mechanical force. It is generated by the interaction and contact of a solid body with a fluid (liquid or gas). It is not generated by a force field, in the sense of a gravitational field, or an electromagnetic field, where one object can affect another object without being in physical contact. For lift to be generated, the solid body must be in contact with the fluid: no fluid, no lift. The Space Shuttle does not stay in space because of lift from its wings but because of orbital mechanics related to its speed. Space is nearly a vacuum. Without air, there is no lift generated by the wings.


WEIGHT:




Weight is the force generated by the gravitational attraction of the earth on the airplane. 
We are more familiar with weight than with the other forces acting on an airplane, because each of us have our own weight which we can measure every morning on the bathroom scale. 
We know when one thing is heavy and when another thing is light. But weight, the gravitational force, is fundamentally different from the aerodynamic forces, lift and drag. 
Aerodynamic forces are mechanical forces and the airplane has to be in physical contact with the the air which generates the force. 
The gravitational force is a field force; the source of the force does not have to be in physical contact with the object to generate a pull on the object.

Weight is a force, and a force is a vector quantity having both a magnitude and a direction associated with it. 
  • Example:  an airplane, weight is always directed towards the center of the earth. The magnitude of this force depends on the mass of all of the parts of the airplane itself, plus the amount of fuel, plus any payload on board (people, baggage, freight, ...). 

Flying involves two major problems:
  • overcoming the weight of an object by some opposing force
  • controlling the object in flight. 
Both of these problems are related to the object's weight and the location of the center of gravity. The dream remains that, if we could really understand gravity, we could create anti-gravity devices which would revolutionize travel through the sky. Unfortunately, anti-gravity devices only exist in science fiction. Machines like airplanes, or magnetic levitation devices, create forces opposed to the gravitational force, but they do not block out or eliminate the gravitational force.


Beginner Planes:   [click on link]

  • You will make the following three (3) paper planes.  Watch the short video clip on each type of plane - [click on highlighted link]

    • watch carefully how to fold each plane; then use the template given to you in class to carefully & precisely fold your planes.

      • I will not provide instruction on folding your planes.  This is part of your experiment to carefully read, watch & follow instructions

        *** You must work independently.  You will be scored on this skill.

      • Do not work as a team on this project.  

  • Read all information in this post & experiment paperwork for detail.  

    • Highlight important points for bringing forward in class discussion.  

    You may build one of the INTERMEDIATE PLANES for extra points. 

    SAFETY:

    NEVER throw a paper airplane at another person, animal, or object that could be damaged if you hit it. Paper planes can have sharp edges and points that can injure someone if you are not careful. Keep in mind that paper planes can curve or change direction after they are launched, so make sure your flying area is clear. When flying outdoors, never fly your plane near moving cars or run into the street after your plane.

     Folding Technique - Folding technique is very important for successful flights. Make each of the folds carefully and accurately according to the instructions. Creases should be made by applying pressure to the fold with the edge of your thumbnail. This is best achieved by holding your thumbnail on the fold, applying pressure, and pulling your thumb along the fold line toward you. This will produce clean, crisp folds that will allow for accurate paper planes. If you make a mistake on a fold that you cannot correct, don’t be discouraged! Just print another template.

    Line Types - There are two main types of lines referenced by the instructions: fold lines and cut lines. Fold lines are dashed and cut lines are dotted.


    Model Adjustments - No matter what anyone tells you, EVERY paper airplane needs fine-tuning to achieve its best performance. There are several things you should keep in mind while making adjustments to your planes.

    Dihedral - Dihedral is a slight upward tilt of the wing tips with respect to the fuselage or body of the airplane. This produces a slight V-shape to the wings when viewed from the front of the plane. Dihedral provides aerodynamic stability to your models by making them want to self-center during flight. Paper airplanes have no intelligent flight controls after they leave your hand, so the plane needs to be naturally stable or else it will crash. All designs on this site perform better when some dihedral is added to the wings.


    Elevator - Elevator is the aeronautical term for the hinged flap at the tail section of a plane that causes it to either climb (gain altitude) or dive (lose altitude). In paper airplanes these flaps are generally located on the trailing edge of the wings themselves, since there is rarely a separate tail. They are formed by making parallel cuts about 1 inch apart. This produces a small flap that can be folded slightly up or down. Tilting the elevator flaps up will cause the plane to climb. Tilting them down will make the plane want to dive. If you find that your models are heading nose-down toward the ground shortly after launch, you may need to add some up elevator. Likewise, if they are looping-up too quickly or stalling, you may need to add some down elevator. Adding slightly more elevator to one wing than the other will cause the plane to either turn to the right or left.

     
  • All planes folded and in class ready for flying DUE:  12/09