SSS 1 Physical Sciences

This covers the applications of solar collectors on a domestic and industrial scale including room heating, desalination and power generation.

Devices used to collect solar radiation are introduced and explained. Types of collectors covered include flat plate, line focus and point focus collectors with their parts and working principles.

Differences and similarities between solid friction and fluid friction/viscous drag are explored. Factors that affect viscosity are explained while some applications of viscosity are presented.

The concept of viscosity is explained both within the fluid and through the action of a fluid on a solid moving through a fluid. Weight, upthrust and viscous drag force balance for a solid falling through a liquid is explained leading to an explanation of terminal velocity.

Capillarity is defined and the concepts of surface tension, cohesion and adhesion are used to explain its action in causing liquids to rise and fall in a narrow tube. Applications of capillarity are also mentioned.

Real applications of surface tension in animals that can walk on water, the working principle of detergents and the waterproofing of fabric.

Definition of surface tension and the intermolecular forces that cause surface tension. Factors that affect surface tension and experiments to prove existence of surface tension are also discussed

Solved problem on Hooke's law, work done in springs, stress, strain and Young's modulus

Derivation of the formula for work done and potential energy in an elastic material and the relationship between stiffness constant and Young's modulus.

Introduction to properties of elastic materials: stress, strain and Young's modulus and how these properties are gotten and related.