The Sandbag Collision

As physics teachers, we all know that many introductory physics students have difficulties in understanding conservation of energy during inelastic collisions where the difficult-to-visualize concept of internal energy is involved. An interesting approach using a pair of model carts^1,2 has been developed to help students visualize and understand the concept of internal thermal energy involved during an inelastic collision. This paper will illustrate a sandbag collision experiment that uses visible deformation of the sandbag to help students visualize where the kinetic energy goes during an inelastic collision. This experiment problem (as shown in Fig. 1) can be broken into three small subparts: 1) The pendulum bob swings down until right before hitting the box—a conservation of energy problem; 2) The bob collides with the box—a conservation of momentum problem; 3) The box slides on the table until it comes to a stop—a conservation of energy problem or a dynamics problem.