
Originally Posted by
eal0088
Yea you totally lost me with what you've done. I'm having trouble discerning where you worked out each part of the question. Could you clear it up a bit for me?
Sure thing.
First I wanted to find out all the forces being exerted on this object. Because I knew the object was moving with a constant velocity, the sum of the forces must be zero, in other words, the forces in the y direction must be equal and opposite, and the forces in the x direction must be equal and opposite.
The y directional forces. These forces included gravity, the force of friction exerted on the crate, and the force positioned 52 deg from the floor. The reason I used a sine function was to find the y component of that force.
Gravitational Force = m*g
Force of friction = mu*F(normal)
F(y) = F*sin(52) , here F(y) stands for the y component of the force
In the x direction we have 2 forces, the force exerted by the force positioned 52 degrees from the floor (where I used a cosine function to determine the x component of the force) and the normal force the wall would have exerted on the box.
F(x) = F*cos(52) , here F(x) stands for the x component of the force
F(normal) = -F(x)
Our forces in the y direction had to be strong enough to counteract the force of gravity, but weak enough so that there was no acceleration. So they had to be equal and opposite.
Gravitational forces pulled down
Friction and the force applied countered the gravitational force.
-(Gravitational force) = friction + force applied , this value in the opposite direction as gravity
Now I had to determine the values for friction and the force applied in the Y direction.
From above we have
Force of friction = mu*F(normal)
mu is given, and the normal force is is -F(x) remember?
F(x) = , therefore
Force of friction = mu*F*cos(52)
F(y) = F*sin(52)
These two values added together must be equal to the gravitational force, but in the opposite direction.
-F(gravity) = F(friction) + F(y)
-m*g = mu*F*cos(52)+F*sin(52)
The only unknown here is F, the force being exerted at the 52 degree angle :D
Did that help?