Experiment 202: Conservation of Momentum: The Ballistic Pendulum

Cassandra Julia T. de Jesus

School of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry
Mapua Institute of Technology

I. Conclusion
Momentum is the product of the mass of a moving body and its velocity. It could also be defined as the
mass in motion. When an object moves, then that object is said to have momentum because there’s mass and the
object is moving. An object that is moving at a high velocity but light can have a large momentum. Also, a heavy
object moving slowly has a large momentum.

According to Newton’s first law of motion, an object will remain at rest or constantly move unless acted
upon by an external force. Therefore, the forces experienced by a body in a collision changes the momentum of the
system. Without the external forces, the momentum remains the same. The momentum of the objects before the
collision is equal to the momentum of the objects after the collision. Since the mass is constant, the external force
that changes the velocity of the moving object, changes the momentum.

In a closed system, the total momentum and the total energy does not change. There are two types of
collisions which are the inelastic and elastic collision and in these collisions, the total momentum and total energy in
a system is conserved. In an elastic collision the kinetic energy is not conserved. It may be converted to another
form of energy. And that formed energy doesn’t get converted back to a kinetic energy like in a swinging ball tied to
the ceiling where the kinetic energy transforms to potential energy. As the ball goes down, the potential energy gets
converted back to kinetic energy. Nevertheless, the total energy stays the same.

In all kinds of collision, the total momentum is conserved whether in an elastic or in an inelastic collision
as long as the collision occurred in an isolated system. When there’s a collision between two objects in a closed
system, the total momentum of the two objects before and after the collision is the same. Provided that; there are no
external forces.

II. Application
When a large truck moving at a constant velocity is carrying a heavy load has to stop before the red lights
on the stop light turns on. It would be hard to stop the truck even if it is not moving fast because of its large
momentum caused by having a large mass.

When a moving van accidentally hits a non-moving car and the car moves to the direction the force is
applied on it, there’s an elastic collision. Say, the moving van has a momentum of 20,000 kg m/s and the non-
moving car has zero momentum. Once the van hits the non-moving car, the non-moving car would move away from
the van because of the force applied so it would have a velocity, thus having momentum. The car would gain an
amount of momentum say 5000 kg m/s and the moving car would then have a momentum of 15,000 kg m/s. The
total momentum of the system is unchanged and so as the kinetic energy. This also applies to the billiard ball being
hit by another ball.

When a two carts moving towards each other and stick together while moving in a certain velocity , there’s
inelastic collision between them. Assuming that the masses of the cart are the same, and cart 1 as a velocity of 10m/s
while cart to only has a velocity of 6 m/s. Cart 1 would have a larger momentum because of its higher velocity. So
when the carts stick, they would go to the direction in which cart 1 is heading towards to. The kinetic energy would
be transformed into a different form and the total momentum would stay the same.