Hooke’s Law and the Science Behind Springs - WB Jones (2024)

FAQs

What is Hooke's law and the science behind springs? ›

Hooke sought to demonstrate the relationship between the forces applied to a spring and its elasticity. Hooke's Law states that the extension of a spring is proportional to the load that is applied to it. A variety of materials obey this law as long as the load does not exceed the material's elastic limit.

Hooke's Law: The Physics of Springs

Hooke's Law states that the more you deform a spring, the more force it will take to deform it further. Using the example of a common compression spring, the more you compress the spring, the more force it will take to compress it further.

Stress and strain take different forms in different situations. Generally, for small deformations, the stress and strain are proportional to each other, and this is known as Hooke's Law. Hooke's law states that the strain of the material is proportional to the applied stress within the elastic limit of that material.

Therefore, in order to prove Hooke's Law, you must show that the force applied to the spring (F) is proportional to the amount of stretch (x) and this ratio is at a constant value (k). In our experiment, the force that allows the spring to stretch by attaching weight (m) to the spring.

Real springs only follow Hooke's law (T=kΔL) for small deformations. Since we will sometimes be interested in how springy things (like a DNA coil) behave for non-Hooke's law stretches, lets consider how a real spring might behave given our experience with real springs.

Hooke's Law has numerous applications in the real world, including: It serves as the fundamental principle behind the manometer, spring scale, and the balance wheel of a clock. Hooke's law forms the basis for seismology, acoustics, and molecular mechanics.

Hooke's Law is a theory of physics that describes the relationship between force applied to an elastic object just like a spring. Deformulating Hooke's Law in to words, it describes force exerted on the object is directly proportional to the amount of deformation.

The fundamental principle behind springs is Hooke's Law, which states that the extension or compression of a spring is directly proportional to the applied force. Springs are designed to withstand external forces and retain their original shape.

Elastic potential energy is energy stored as a result of applying a force to deform an elastic object. The energy is stored until the force is removed and the object springs back to its original shape, doing work in the process. The deformation could involve compressing, stretching or twisting the object.

Hooke's law also governs the limits of an object's elasticity, a metal spring, for instance, can only stretch so far before excess force causes it to break. In engineering, Hooke's law has a very practical purpose: to ensure that components can withstand a pre-calculated level of force.

What was the conclusion of the Hooke's Law experiment? ›

In conclusion, Hooke's Law states that the force needed to extend or compress a spring by a certain distance is directly proportional to that distance.

Derivation of Hooke's law

By convention, the minus or negative sign is present in F= -kx. The restoring force F is proportional to the displacement x, according to Hooke's law. When the spring is compressed, the coordinate of displacement x is negative. Zero when the spring is at its normal length.

K is a spring constant. The spring constant will depend on the stiffness of the spring material, the thickness of the wire from which the spring is wound and, the diameter of the turns of the coil, the number of turns per unit length and the overall length of the spring.

Elastic deformation occurs when the stress is removed. Meaning, if the material returns to the dimension it had before the load or stress was applied, its deformation is reversible, non-permanent, and it 'springs back. ' The spring force formula is expressed through the equation: F = – kx.

In physics, springs have the following basic properties: They are elastic, meaning they return to their original shape after being deformed by a force. They store potential energy. The force the spring exerts increases as the distance it is stretched/compressed increases.

A spring is an elastic object that stores mechanical energy and releases it when the opposing force is removed. If you need to apply force to create movement or hold something in place without the use of engines or other powered means, springs could be the answer.

It is a measure of the spring's stiffness. When a spring is stretched or compressed, so that its length changes by an amount x from its equilibrium length, then it exerts a force F = -kx in a direction towards its equilibrium position.

The equation for determining the force a spring exerts is F s = − k Δ x where is an experimentally determined figure called the spring constant which reports the amount of force exerted by the spring per meter of stretch or compression and is the distance the spring is stretched or compressed from its equilibrium ...