paulb203 said:
Car A
Mass; 1000kg
Constant v; 15m/s
Time(from hitting the wall to stopping); 0.1s
Q. To establish the acceleration for the F=ma calculation do I do;
A=(v-u)/t
A=(0m/s-15m/s)/t
A= -15/0.1
A= -150m/s/s ?
Yes. To come to a stop in 0.1 seconds from an initial velocity of 15 m/s requires an average acceleration of -150 m/s/s.
We can compute the required average collision force as ##F_\text{collision} = mA_\text{collision} = 5000 \times -150 = -750000## N
paulb203 said:
Car B
Mass; 1000kg
A= 5m/s/s
V on impact; 15m/s
Time (from hitting the wall to stopping); 0.1s
Q. To establish the acceleration for the F=ma calculation for Car B do I do the same as I did for Car A;
A=(v-u)/t
You are going to confuse yourself if you use the same variable name "A" to denote both the acceleration rate during the collision and the acceleration rate prior to the collision.
Let us use ##A_\text{prior}## to denote the prior acceleration rate.
This means that someone is applying a forward force of ##F_\text{prior} = mA_\text{prior} = 5000 \times 5 = 25000## N prior to and during the collision.
paulb203 said:
A=(0m/s-15m/s)/t
A= -15/0.1
A= -150m/s/s ?
The required acceleration is the same. But what average collision force is now required to achieve that acceleration?
The net force is still going to be -750000 N, But with the engine still running and the tires still spinning and providing 25000 N of forward force, the collision will need to produce -775000 N of retarding force to result in the same net force and, consequently, the same deceleration profile.
This is somewhat unrealistic. How would the wall know that it needs to produce more force against car B than against car A?
The collision time is in the right ball park. Assuming constant deceleration, we have an average speed of 7.5 m/s during a collision of 0.1 s duration. So about 75 centimeters of crush.