Accelerating Car Free Body Diagram

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SUMMARY

The discussion focuses on creating a free-body diagram for a car accelerating to the right from a stop. The key forces identified are normal force, weight, friction, and drag. The user initially positioned the friction force to the right and drag to the left, which is incorrect as both should oppose the direction of acceleration. The correct orientation requires friction and drag to point left, while normal force points up and weight points down.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of free-body diagrams in physics
  • Knowledge of force vectors and their representations
  • Familiarity with Newton's laws of motion
  • Basic principles of dynamics and acceleration
NEXT STEPS
  • Study the principles of free-body diagrams in physics
  • Learn about vector addition and force equilibrium
  • Explore the effects of friction and drag on moving objects
  • Review Newton's second law of motion and its applications
USEFUL FOR

Students in physics courses, particularly those studying dynamics, as well as educators looking for examples of free-body diagrams and force analysis.

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Homework Statement



Identify all forces acting on the object and draw the free-body diagram.
Draw the force vectors with their tails at the dot. The orientation of your vectors will be graded. The exact length of your vectors will not be graded but the relative length of one to the other will be graded.

Your car is accelerating to the right from a stop.

Homework Equations



free body diagram

The Attempt at a Solution



I don't know how to upload the images on here...

Basically, I'm using a homework physics program and it's not accepting any of my answers. All of the questions on it are similar to this and so far I've gotten them all wrong on my first attempt.

For this particular question, I have four force arrows: normal, weight, drag, and friction and a black dot in the center of a screen. I have to draw the force arrows from the dot.

I had the normal force moving in the upward direction, the weight force moving in the downward direction, the friction force moving to the right and the drag arrow moving to the left. I had all the arrows at relatively, the same length.

I'm so stumped, I don't know what to fix...

Thank you!
 
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The only thing that I can think of is that the arrows for friction and drag should both be in the same direction, against the acceleration of the car. Also, if the car is on an inclined plane, the arrow for the normal force would be perpendicular to the plane rather than directly against gravity.
 
I tried putting the friction and drag arrows in the same direction, to the left, but that was wrong apparently. The car is not indicated to be on a plane.

Thank you though!
 

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