Measuring the Resistivity of Nichrome

Name: Danya Alrawi

Date: 23/11/2011

In this lab I am required to find the value of resistivity of a nichrome wire by setting up a simple electric curcit. Resistivity is the property of how well a material would allow electric current to flow through. A good conductor would have a low resistivity value while a good insulator would have higher resistivity value. The value of resistivity is given in the formula: Resistance= L/ A Where is resistivity, L is the length of the wire and A is the cross-sectional area of the wire used in the circuit. The circuit consists of a power supply (Emf), nichrome wire set on a ruler in order to measure the length, a moving coil ammeter, voltmeter and a switch to allow the current to flow and to avoid overheating of the wire. The circuit would look something like this 1

The independent variable in this lab is the length, the values for the length vary from 10cm to 80
1 Found in: http://www.capphysics.ca/PhysLab/Phys114115/exp_9%20-%20electricity/Print%20Electricity.htm

cm. The current will be the dependent variable since the current is equal to V/R and R L then we expect the current to be inversely proportional to the length. In order to simplify measurements, we keep the voltage provided constant by adjusting the power supply to get a voltage reading of 1V. Below is a table showing how the current responds to the change in length: Length L (cm 0.2cm) 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 Current I (Amperes 0.05A) 1.75 0.89 0.61 0.45 0.36 0.30 0.25

80.0 0.22 When graphing this raw data, we get a best fit curve like this:

In order to get a linear relationship, we have to graph the inverse of the current. Processed data table:

Length (cm 0.2) 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0

Current (A0.05A) 1.75 0.89 0.61 0.45 0.36 0.30 0.25 0.22

Inverse of Current 0.57 1.12 1.64 2.22 2.78 3.33 4.00 4.55

Uncertainty for Current 0.03 0.06 0.08 0.11 0.14 0.17 0.20 0.23

-The uncertainty for current is calculated from dividing the absolute uncertainty for current (estimated to be 0.05A) by the value of current measured by the ammeter, corrected to one significant figure. (Using LoggerPro, we create a calculated column, in the equation box we put 0.05/ Current) Graphing the processed data and obtaining a linear fit:

The graph consists of 3 lines; a minimum fit, linear fit and a maximum fit. The maximum and minimum fit lines are obtained from plotting the error bars which are drawn by using the calculated column for the current uncertainty. The minimum fit should pass through the least value of the error bar in the largest data point and the maximum of the smallest point of reference (I chose the third data point to be the point of reference because both the maximum and minimum fit lines pass through the lowest and highest value of the error bar respectively). Best fit line slope = 0.05 0.01 Uncertainty for slope = (max line slope min line slope)/2 = 0.0065 Now, we need to find the cross-sectional area of the nichrome wire. In order to do so, I used a micrometer to measure the diameter of the wire which I found to be 0.61mm 0.01mm, the radius is diameter/2 = 0.30 Cross-sectional area = R = 2.8210^-7m From the graph, we have: 1/I = slope Length Since we've kept the voltage constant at 1V, I=V/R R=1/I And from the first equation showing the relationship for resistivity, we find that: =SlopeCross-sectional area =0.0510^22.8210^-7 =1.6110^-6 0.0065 The theoretical value for the resistivity of Nichrome is found to be ranging between 1.00 10-6 m and 1.50 10-6 m2 To find the percentage error of the resistivity value: Percentage error = experimental value-theoretical value 100 Theoretical value = 7.33% Conclusion: In this lab, the purpose was to measure the value of resistivity of Nichrome by setting up a circuit and using an ammeter and voltmeter. We expect the ammeter to be designed in a way that it may offer negligible resistance so that it doesn't effect the reading of the current flowing through the circuit. Then, we obtain the resistivity value after graphing inverse of current (to get a linear fit) versus the length of the wire. Multiplying the slope of this line by the cross-sectional area of the wire (this is deduced from the equation in the introduction), we obtain the experimental value for resistivity. I have chosen 1.50 10-6 m to be the theoretical value and hence found the percentage error of 7.33% associated with the experimental value.
2 Source: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/HarveyKwan.shtml

This is a relatively high error percentage, this implies that the quality of the data is not quite accurate, this may be due to random errors such as non-accurate readings by the observer. Evaluation: The main problem associated with this experiment is the reliability of the data measured by both the ammeter and voltmeter since we used moving coil ammeters/voltmeters which use an oscillating needle, the existence of systematic errors in the devices used for measurement must have shifted the values too high since the value obtained from the experiment is higher than the theoretical value. One way to reduce this error is to use a more advanced device of measuring electric current (digital ammeters/voltmeters to show the exact value instead of a needle oscillating back and forth) Another limitation would be the fact that I didn't take in account the previous state of the device used, for example, if the ammeter has already had a small electric current flowing through it, it would effect the reading and make it higher than it actually is. In order to minimize this error, we need to be sure that the device is properly zeroed and is measuring the current more accurately, maybe by recording multiple trials and taking the average value for each trial.