Potential Energy
Last week we called Potential Energy "stored energy". Today, we defined PE as "energy associated with position". There are several types of PE associated with particular forces as follows:
The change in Potential Energy (deltaPE)=the work required to go from an initial state to a final state. This was demonstrated in the staircase climbing lab we did last week (work was done by climbing the stairs, causing the gravitational PE to increase).
When working with PE energy and work, assume no energy is lost due to friction.
Gravitational Potential Energy is energy of height. It increases in response to work being done against a gravitational field (again, like the staircase lab). Some effects of Gravitational PE are seen in roller coasters, sky diving, and hydro-electric power generators.
The unit of PE is the Joule (J)
Key Equation Learned Today
m: mass
g :gravitational field strength
h: height
- Gravitational PE-gravity
- Elastic PE-elastic forces (spring)
- Chemical PE-coloumb forces (electric charges)
- Nuclear PE-strong or weak nuclear foreces
The change in Potential Energy (deltaPE)=the work required to go from an initial state to a final state. This was demonstrated in the staircase climbing lab we did last week (work was done by climbing the stairs, causing the gravitational PE to increase).
When working with PE energy and work, assume no energy is lost due to friction.
Gravitational Potential Energy is energy of height. It increases in response to work being done against a gravitational field (again, like the staircase lab). Some effects of Gravitational PE are seen in roller coasters, sky diving, and hydro-electric power generators.
The unit of PE is the Joule (J)
Key Equation Learned Today
- Change in PE=mg(change in h)
m: mass
g :gravitational field strength
h: height
4 comments:
Nice job Lin!
If we can continue to build on this great start, we will be more successful than I could have imagined!
This post was really helpful and it really built upon what we did in class...thanks!
This post really help me learn about PE. But im confused with the elastic PE and the other type of PE like chemical PE.
Hi Kassidy,
Cick here for another explanation of potential energy. The two types we will worry about in Regents Physics are gravitational PE (height) and elastic PE (springs). The chemical PE and Nuclear PE we discussed are lumped in with the internal energy term.
We won't be doing any calculations with internal energy beyond recognizing that when we do work against friction, it shows up as an increase in internal energy, which we call Q.
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