- #1
bitrex
- 193
- 0
Hello everyone,
It's been a long time since I've taken a physics course, but recently I've become interested again and am studying some classical mechanics in my spare time. I was thinking the other night about that computer generated Ford commercial where the truck is spun on a rotating arm by its tow hooks. From the ad I'd guess the length of the arm is about 50 meters, rotating at about 1 Hz, and I know the curb weight of a Ford F-150 is around 1800kg. Using
[tex]F=-m\omega^2r[/tex]
I get a centrifugal force of over 3.5 million Newtons! Now supposedly these commercials are based on "actual lab tests", so I assume that somewhere sometime engineers have calculated the actual amount of combined force that can be applied to the tow hooks before they shear. Now obviously most car ads are BS, but is this one total BS or could those tow hooks really stand up to that kind of force?
It's been a long time since I've taken a physics course, but recently I've become interested again and am studying some classical mechanics in my spare time. I was thinking the other night about that computer generated Ford commercial where the truck is spun on a rotating arm by its tow hooks. From the ad I'd guess the length of the arm is about 50 meters, rotating at about 1 Hz, and I know the curb weight of a Ford F-150 is around 1800kg. Using
[tex]F=-m\omega^2r[/tex]
I get a centrifugal force of over 3.5 million Newtons! Now supposedly these commercials are based on "actual lab tests", so I assume that somewhere sometime engineers have calculated the actual amount of combined force that can be applied to the tow hooks before they shear. Now obviously most car ads are BS, but is this one total BS or could those tow hooks really stand up to that kind of force?