A Study in Conveyor Belts
Friction is the main force behind conveyor belts, devices which play larges roles in our everyday lives. Our project will address the physical forces and concepts behind the belts, their use in the world, and it will also detail an experiment designed to answer our questions about conveyor belts.
Experiment
Our experiment will deal with the impact different materials have on the friction created between a conveyor belt and the object it is conveying. We will design scenarios that use belts of different materials, and objects of different materials. Ultimately we will measure and compile data and the stability and speed of the different combinations of materials. We predict that the lower the combined friction coefficient of the two materials is, the faster it will slide, and that a combination of coefficients somewhere in the middle will produce the most stable sliding motion.