On the measurement of the free fall acceleration on the basis of the ATWOOD machine

Abstract

A well-known laboratory work dedicated to the measurement of the free fall acceleration on the basis of the Atwood machine is widely used in different universities, in particular, in the Dnipro University of Technology. However, in the block moment of inertia and the moment of frictional force in the block axis are neglected, which leads to understated measurement results. The mathematical model which takes into account the above-mentioned parameters of the Atwood machine is given in but in the problem of the free fall acceleration measurement is not considered. So, the aim the work is to investigate the accuracy of the measured results in the framework of the model which takes into account the block moment of inertia and to estimate the average moment of frictional force in the block axis.