View Full Version : Work needed to push a car
pinkwya
Nov 11, 2011, 12:04 PM
What is the minuimum work needed to push a 950 kg car 180 m up along a 9.0 degree incline?
a) Ignore friction.
b) assume the effective cofficient of friction retarding the car is 0.25.
ebaines
Nov 11, 2011, 12:23 PM
A. Work equals force applied times distance of travel. You know the distance, so all you need to determine is the force needed to push the car up the 9 degree incline. That would be the car's weight times the sine of 9 degrees.
B. Here the force needed is increased by friction, which is the coefficient of friction times the normal force of the car's weight against the incline.
Give this a shot and post your answers - we'll check them for you.
pinkwya
Nov 11, 2011, 01:30 PM
Part a ( ignoring friction)
F- mgsin(9)=0
so F= mg sin(9)
so W= F* d* cos(18o)= 950*9.80*sin(9)*810*cos(180)= -1179684J
Part b ( with friction)
Fn= mg cos(9)
Ffr= 0.25* mg cos(9)
so F+Ffr-mg sin(9)=0
F= mgsin(9)-(0.25*mg* cos(180)= -842.44J
so W= -842.44* 810= -682376.4J
ebaines
Nov 11, 2011, 01:55 PM
Part a ( ignoring friction)
F- mgsin(9)=0
so F= mg sin(9)
so W= F* d* cos(18o)= 950*9.80*sin(9)*810*cos(180)= -1179684J
First - is the distance 810 (as you show here) or 180 (as you wrote in your first post)? Next, you shouldn't include the cos(180) term, because that gives a negative distance. That's why you got a negative number for W, but it should be positive. So use W = 950*9.8*sin(9)*810.
Part b ( with friction)
Fn= mg cos(9)
Ffr= 0.25* mg cos(9)
so F+Ffr-mg sin(9)=0
Should be F-Ffr-mgsin(9) = 0. Remember that the friction opposes the pushing, and so the force required to push the car is greater in part (b) than (a), not less.
pinkwya
Nov 11, 2011, 04:13 PM
A)
Firstly,the distance is 810 and not 180 as I wrote in the post.. it was a mistake!
Then,the angle in the formula W = F*d*cos(theata)
Is the angle between the force and the distance so it niether 180 nor 9 . It it is zero because F is the same direction of D..
b)
I totally agree.. and thank you for your note