DEVICE FOR STUDYING COLLISIONS
Abstract
The collisions between two bodies occur in a very small interval of time during which, the two bodies exert relatively large forces on each other. The coefficient of restitution of two colliding bodies is defined as the ratio of the relative velocity after and before an impact, taken along the line of the impact.
The paper presents a proposed device for studying the coefficient of restitution in a collision between a model railway wagon and a buffer made of different materials (rubber, polystyrene, sponge). The wagon runs on the rails on an inclined plane with zero initial velocity and collides an energy-absorbing buffer in the end. Measuring the time of motion and the impact force variation, the acceleration and the impact velocities are calculated. The related coefficient of restitution is computed.
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