How to Create and Interpret Energy Diagrams

Roshni Desai, Fall 2023

The Main Idea

Energy diagrams are tools used to analyze a system's energy and motion with respect to a scalar variable like position or time. They are typically used to represent the kinetic and potential energy within a system, in addition to a horizontal line that depicts the total mechanical energy of the system.

To draw the energy graph of a system, the following method should be used:

1) Determine if the potential energy is attractive or repulsive

  a. For example, gravitational potential energy is attractive since it draws objects to the surface of the Earth (Ug<0)
     Electric potential energy for charges with the same sign is repulsive, since like charges repel (Ue>0).

A Computational Model

Vpython is great for modeling this concept. Using vpython, we can model many different systems that have kinetic and potential energy. We can model a spacecraft orbiting the Earth, and we can create graphs to display the kinetic, potential, and kinetic+potential energies of this system. See this code for how to do this!

[Sample Vpython code:https://trinket.io/glowscript/4010e21bc3]

Examples

Difficult

creating energy graphs for different situations

Connectedness

1. How is this topic connected to something that you are interested in?
2. How is it connected to your major?
3. Is there an interesting industrial application?

History

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See also

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