Department of Physics and Astronomy - Minnesota State University Moorhead

Department of Physics and Astronomy
College of Health, Science, & the Environment

Department Seminar Senior Project Presentations
by Adam Kline, Sakurako Tani, and Boston Heaford (MSUM)

Friday, December 6 at 3:00 pm in Hagen 325
This presentation consists of senior Physics majors are presenting their Senior Projects. They include:

Adam Kline: Making Measurements with a Home-made Force Plate using the Piezoelectric Effect
A force plate is a device that converts an applied force into an electric signal with the use of a transducer. Certain crystals and ceramics are a kind of piezoelectric transducer in that they change shape when a strain is applied. This change in shape creates a voltage due to an imbalance of charged particles in the crystal lattice. A small force plate was built using ceramic piezo elements in the corners of two pcb etching plates. The voltage was measured across the plate when a mass is just placed on top the plate and a calibration curve for multiple masses was created. The expected linearized slope of Voltage vs Mass was 5.5 kg^-1. The slope of the initial data was 8.9±3.2 V which gives a significance ratio of 1.1. This is not significantly different. The slope of the second data set was 7.6±1.2 V which gives a significance ratio of 1.8, which also isn't significantly different.

Sakurako Tani: Thermocouples
A thermocouple is a simple device commonly used in science to measure temperatures. In can be created by connecting two different kinds of metals. The Seebeck effect allows the thermocouple to provide a certain amount of voltage that is approximately proportional to temperature difference between the two junctions. In this experiment, voltages and currents of two types of thermocouples, K(nickel-Chromium/Nickel-Alumel) and J(Iron/Constantan), with five different diameters (0.05mm, 0.07mm, 0.13mm, 0.25mm, 0.38mm) are obtained. The relative Seebeck coefficient and relationship between the current and diameter of the wire was studied.

Boston Heaford: Efficiency of a Stirling Engine Under Various Pressures
The purpose of this experiment was to experimentally determine the relationship between the operating pressure of a Stirling engine and the power output of the engine given a constant input power. The expected relationship was that power should increase proportionally to pressure squared, or Power ∝ Pa². It was found that at standard atmospheric pressure of 98200±700 pascals the power output was (1.3±0.3)×10^-4W. Increasing the pressure to 202300±700Pa it would be expected by the hypothesized relationship that the power should increase to (5.5±1.3)×10^-4 W but it was instead found to increase to (1.37±0.03)×10^-3W. This is a sigma of 5.125, so the values significantly disagree with the hypothesized relationship.

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Mission Statement

Our mission is to provide excellent undergraduate instruction in physics and astronomy. In lower division courses, faculty use lecture demonstrations, cooperative learning methods, hands-on activities, and field trips to develop a broad working knowledge of physics. In upper division courses, in addition to the above methods, students learn through cooperative projects, research with faculty, and hands-on instrumentation and computation projects.

About the Department of Physics and Astronomy

The MSUM Physics and Astronomy program is a student-centered program. We provide students with educational opportunities in the classroom and outside it in order to improve their preparation for a career using physics.

We have facilities including a nanotechnology and robotics lab, a student-built NMR machine, and the Paul P. Feder observatory.

Our faculty have high quality research programs in space physics, robotics, extragalactic, galactic, and solar system astrophysics, and physics education. Our undergraduate students participate in these research programs and gain experience to prepare them for careers in physics and related fields.

Contact Information
Office: Hagen Hall 307
Phone: (218) 477-2141
Email: lindellj@mnstate.edu

Send ground mail to:
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Minnesota State University Moorhead
1104 7th Avenue South, Hagen Hall 307
Moorhead, MN 56563

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