Why Does Increasing Weight Decrease Acceleration in a Pulley System?

[tnutty]

This is not a homework question. I though I post this here because more members here a helping us, rather than the general physics question. Please don't move this:
This post might be long to read, but is easy. I thank you if you take the time to read it.

So I am confused on why this is. I was done with my lab and got the result. Now I am writing a lab report. I have the following data :

With constant hanger mass of 0.125kg, the accelerations are :

Trial # ---- acceleration of experiment ---- acceleration of frictionless
1 ------ 2.5200 ------ 4.77
2 ------ 1.4440 ------ 3.99
3 ------ 0.7200 ------ 3.40
4 ------ 0.1460 ------ 3.01
5 ------ 0.0536 ------ 2.68

This is a pulley system. The hanger is the one hanging at the end of the table. A puck is connected with a "massless" string which runs through a "massless" pulley, which connects to a hanger. So in this trials the hanger's mass is constant and the pucks mass is increases with trial. Although it is not shown.

I hope you understand what I said thus far. So from the data you can see that the force
of friction is decreasing as the mass increases. Just by subtracting the acceleration of experiment by the below trial shows that the difference in the acceleration is decreasing, thus the force of friction is also decreasing. The acceleration of frictionless is the theoretical acceleration.

Why is it the in a as a object weight increases, it experiences less force of friction?

 

[tnutty]

I think I might have misinterpreted the info.

 

[nlightner]

Acceleration is the rate of change of an object's velocity over time. In this experiment, the object is a puck connected to a hanger by a string and running through a pulley. When the object is released, it accelerates due to the force of gravity pulling it towards the ground. However, there is also a force of friction acting on the object due to the contact between the puck and the surface it is sliding on.

The force of friction is dependent on the weight of the object, as well as the roughness of the surface and the normal force (the force perpendicular to the surface). In this experiment, the weight of the object is increasing with each trial, but the normal force and roughness of the surface remain constant. This means that as the weight of the object increases, the force of friction also increases.

However, the acceleration of the object is also dependent on the net force acting on it. In this experiment, the net force is the difference between the force of gravity pulling the object down and the force of friction pushing the object in the opposite direction. As the weight of the object increases, the force of gravity also increases. But if the force of friction is not increasing at the same rate, the net force acting on the object decreases. This results in a decrease in acceleration.

In other words, as the weight of the object increases, the force of friction increases but not at the same rate as the force of gravity. This leads to a decrease in the net force and therefore a decrease in acceleration. This is why, in your data, the acceleration of the object decreases as the weight of the object increases.

It is important to note that this relationship between weight, force of friction, and acceleration is specific to this experiment and may not apply to all situations. Other factors such as the surface roughness and the angle of the incline (if applicable) can also affect the force of friction and therefore the acceleration. It is always important to carefully consider all the variables and their relationships when analyzing data and drawing conclusions in scientific experiments.