PHYSL 233 - Resistance
PHYSL 233 - Resistance
PHYSL 233 - Resistance
Name:
Zhalyan Sardar Ali
Date:
April 19, 2020
Section 3
Introduction:
Resistance is a constant in ohms, that restricts the flow of current in a circuit. Even though
different types of conductors have a constant resistance, but its value corresponds to the change
of the area (A), length (L), and the resistivity () of the conductor expressed as following:
ρ×L
R=
A
In this experiment we are going to observe the change of the value of the resistor due to the
change of resistivity, length, and area separately.
Material:
This is a virtual lab where you will find the equipment on
(https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/resistance-in-a-wire/latest/resistance-in-a- wire_en.html).
Procedure:
Using the setup attached in the next page, each of the following parts was repeated five times to
get enough data to plot the graphs and find their correlation:
1) Keeping the values of length and area constant, changing the value of the resistivity, and then
recording the value of the corresponding resistance.
2) Keeping the values of resistivity and area constant, changing the value of the length, and then
recording the value of the corresponding resistance.
3) Keeping the values of length and resistivity constant, changing the value of the area, and then
recording the value of the corresponding resistance.
Note that the values in the picture are not accurate since the picture was attached to demonstrate
the setup of the experiment.
Data:
Followings are the data acquired in the experiment:
Table 1
L = 3.3 cm A = 2.5 cm 2
Resistivity (cm) Resistance ()
0.50 0.66
0.22 0.29
0.35 0.46
0.68 0.90
0.84 1.1
Table 2
ρ = 0.30 cm A = 3.3 cm2
Length (cm) Resistance ()
2.0 0.18
3.8 0.35
6.8 0.63
8.2 0.73
10.5 0.96
Table 3
L = 7.5 cm ρ = 0.40 cm
Area (cm) Resistance ()
4.3 0.70
6.15 0.49
7.48 0.40
8.4 0.36
9.7 0.31
Discussion:
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
Resistivity (cm)
Therefore, the slope of the line is equal to the ratio of length to area.
R² = 0.999998662337149
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Length (cm)
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2 0.22 0.24 0.26
Area (cm2)
0.5 R² = 0.941592418376408
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Area (cm2)
In the graph it is shown that the slope of the line is negative, meaning that resistance and area are
inversely proportionate.
Conclusion:
The value of the resistance of a conductor depends on the resistivity, length, and its area. Having
a larger length and resistivity results in a larger resistance, however the larger the cross-sectional
area is, the smaller the resistance would get.