An-Najah National University

Engineering College
Civil Engineering Department
Construction Materials Lab

Exp. No. : 1
Exp. Name : Equilibrium of Forces
Prepared by: Rania Mohammed Sabbah , Ola Hinawi
Neveen Abu Al-Rob ,Aya
Submitted to : Lama Asmah
Section: Wednesday ( 10-12)
Introduction:
In this experiment we will learn more about the equilibrium of forces in vertical plane, and we will consider
two equations of equilibrium, and we will learn how to set a system of forces in equilibrium condition by
simply changing the weights carried by strings and the angles between those strings experimentally. And
here a very short review of Newton's first law, first law of equilibrium and vectors.
A force is the push or pull that one object exerts on another. The essential
properties of force are summarized in Newton's three laws of motion
.
Newtons first law states that an object at rest, or moving with constant motion, will remain at rest, or
moving at constant motion unless acted upon by an external force. One
consequence of Newton's first law is that if an object is at rest, the total
force on it must be zero.

First Law of Equilibrium:

A set of forces acting on a body will hold that body in equilibrium provided the vector sum of those forces
adds to zero, i.e., provided the vectors representing the forces form a closed polygon when placed head to
tail.
Any two vectors (as shown in figure (a) below) may be added by the so-called "Parallelogram Law" to form
one resultant vector (figure (b)). Thus, for equilibrium to exist, the third vector must be equal (in
magnitude), opposite (in direction) and collinear to this resultant (figure (c)).

(a) ( b) (c)

Three forces that add to zero must form a closed triangle. (When three forces are parallel, the
triangle collapses to a straight line.) (figure (d)).

This experiment is important for us ,because we learned theoretically the laws of equilibrium
and when we did the experiment by our hands ,this improved our understanding of
equilibrium.
:Objectives
For an object to be in equilibrium, two conditions must be met. The first condition is
that the sum of all forces acting on the object must equal zero. The second condition is that
the sum of all torques acting on the object must be zero. The objective of this lab is to test
the first condition of equilibrium for the case of a set of concurrent, coplanar forces acting on
.a single object

:THEORY
The purpose of this experiment is to verify Newton's First Law and to study the equilibrium of
a set of forces acting in a vertical plane, as applied to a stationary

body acted upon by concurrent forces

Newton's First Law states that when a body is in equilibrium, the vector sum of all forces

acting on the body is zero

F = 0 (1)

Because the forces are concurrent the sum of moments is by default zero so we end up with
.two equations of equilibrium in two dimentions

:In a two-dimensional case, this vector equation is equivalent to two scalar equations

Fx=0

Fy=0 (2)

Equation (1) may be verified graphically by adding all force vectors together by the

polygon method. In the absence of experimental error, the polygon closes

A further consequence of equation (1) is the fact that the magnitude of the vector sum of

any combination of forces acting on the body in equilibrium is equal to the magnitude of

.the vector sum of all of the remaining forces

The main piece of apparatus for this experiment is a force table, that is, a vertical plane

.Pulleys may be clamped to the edge of the plane at any desired position

.Strings, connected to a ring at the center of the board, pass over the pulleys

To provide the forces in equilibrium, standard masses are hung from the ends of

the strings. The forces acting on the ring are the tensions in the strings. When the ring is

.in equilibrium, each tension is equal to the weight, mg, of the masses hanging from the string
 : Procedure and Device
.Examine the board with the pulleys

The device is a vertical board consist of: pulleys, a ring, strings, hangers and different loads
:see the picture below

Put the clean sheet drawing paper its place at the center

Attach the load cord assemblies

Place the ring cord at the center (temporarily)

Add the load hanger to each free end (if it wasn't already there)

Add loads gently till you obtain the condition of equilibrium(when the nail is at the center of
.the ring or when the central ring is stationary and near the centre of the board)

Use a pencil to transfer the line of action of forces(strings) to the sheet paper

Carefully remove the paper and use the results to do the needed calculations

:Heres picture of how a typical setup looks

Data collection :
In our experiment the forces (from the device) were F1=1.5 N , F2=2.4N , F3=1.1N, F4=0.6
N .and the angles 1=90, 2=-35, 3=145 ,4=215(experimental values).

Every 1cm one the sheet

Analysis
:

In our experiment we used a device which is a force board consisting of a vertical board with
a ring at the middle this ring is tied with a strings each string carry a tensile force that can be
calculated easily by summing up the loads hanged at each hanger at the end of the strings
,The pulleys redirect the forces so that four forces pull on the central ring in different
directions. Knowing the directions will let you calculate the x- and the y-components of the
: forces. see the figure below

We put different loads at each string until the ring was exactly at the middle and there we
have the condition of equilibrium and the equations of equilibrium are satisfied, because the
forces we have are concurrent forces we have just two equations of equilibrium instead of
: three

Fx=0

Fy=0

In our experiment the forces were F1=1.5 N , F2=2.4N , F3=1.1N, F4=0.6 N .and the angles
.1=90, 2=-35, 3=145 ,4=215(experimental values)

Fx=1.5cos90+2.4cos35-1.1cos35-.6cos35=? 0

not = 0 (because of the sources of errors we will discuss lately) 57.=

Fy=1.5sin90+.6sin35-2.4sin35-1.1sin35=?0

not=0(because of the sources of errors we will discuss lately) 163.-=

To get the theoretical value we assume that the forces obtained were correct except for F4
.and the angles measured were correct except for 4

by setting Fx=0 and Fy=0

.we get the theoretical value of F4 =1.12 and 4=26.56

hence the percent of error in magnitude =(|F4 from device-F4theo|\F4theo)*100%=46.2%

and the percent of error in direction=(|4from device-4theo|\4theo)*100%=31.78%

:Graphically

We draw the four forces and they should form a closed polygon look at the figure but because
of the high percent of error we had in our experiment it wasn't closed . we measure the
graphical value of F4 by closing the unclosed polygon and by using the scale of 0.2N1cm we
had a length of 5.896cm=1.179N. we had a percent of error equal to 49.1% since F4
graphically was 1.179 N for magnitude and 40% for direction . and the value from device
was .6 N and we know that the percent of error is equal to |exp-theo.|\theo. *100%.and that is
a bigger percent of error than the percent we obtained theoretically that was because of
errors in drawing and measuring and other human errors the paper we got from the device is
.also attached
 1cm stands for 0.2 N

: Specification
The specification for error in this experiment as follows:

1. If % of error 5% then it's an acceptable error.

.
2. If 5% % of error 15% Then the device of experiment needs a calibration.

3. If 15% <%of error then the device is defected.

Discussion:
In this experiment we learned how to set a system of different weights into
equilibrium by changing the angles and the weights in each string (experimentally)
and by equations of equilibrium (theoretically) and by drawing a force
polygon(graphically). From the analysis we noticed that the percent of error was high
(about46.2% in magnitude and 31.78% in direction) that is because of the sources of
errors were in this experiment. the sources are mentioned in the next head line . now
I'm going to discuss some of them :one reason for the high error ; was that the pulleys
do have a friction but in our calculations we didn't consider this friction. The tensile
force each string exerts on the ring should be equal to the weight (mg)-the
friction from the pulley .another source of error was that we assumed all our forces
to be coplanar forces(acts at the same plane) but this wasn't satisfied 100% .that
means that there are z components for the forces and we didn't consider a
third equation in our calculations . The ring was certainly at rest it really was at
equilibrium. The question is, was the sum of forces equal to zero? There are two
issues here. One is whether or not we included every force in our calculations. The
other is, even if we did include all the forces, what does equal to zero mean in this
context? That sounds like a silly question, but it really is at the heart of laboratory
work. There is a limit as to how precise a measurement you can make. This means
that there is a limit to how precise your calculations can be. The specifications say
that if the percent of error was higher than 15% then the device is defected. How true
is this?...

Sources of errors :
1. The smallest weight available was 0.1 we should have smaller weights.
2. The forces weren't exactly(100%) coplanar(lines of action of the forces lie at the
same plane).
3. The friction in the pulleys.
4. Mistakes in marking the string position(human errors).
5. The wear and elongation happened in the strings used.

:Question .
Was the sum of forces in this experiment equal to zero? Please explain your answer
? scientifically