What is the initial horizontal momentum of the car and how does that relate to the horizontal momentum of the car + grain after the grain drops? Can you determine the speed of the car + grain after the drop? What effect does the vertical leak of grain have on the horizontal speed of the car?daivinhtran said:Homework Statement
A runaway 14,000 kg railroad car is rolling horizontally at 4.00 m/s toward a switchyard. As it passes by a grain elevator, 2000 of grain suddenly drops into the car. Suppose the there is a small vertical chute in the bottom of the car so that the grain leaks out at 10 kg/s. How long does it take the car to cover 500m
Homework Equations
Pi = Pf
The Attempt at a Solution
Picture attached
Andrew Mason said:What is the initial horizontal momentum of the car and how does that relate to the horizontal momentum of the car + grain after the grain drops? Can you determine the speed of the car + grain after the drop? What effect does the vertical leak of grain have on the horizontal speed of the car?
AM
Sure you can. How does the horizontal momentum before the collision compare to the horizontal momentum after the collision? (hint: are there any forces acting in the horizontal direction that are external to the car - grain system?).daivinhtran said:I already included those in my paper (attached).
However I can't determine the speed of the car + grain after drop unless I know the time.
Conservation of linear momentum is a fundamental principle in physics that states that the total momentum of a closed system remains constant over time, unless acted upon by an external force.
Conservation of linear momentum is important because it helps us understand how objects behave and interact with each other in a closed system. It allows us to predict the motion of objects and understand the forces acting on them.
The equations for conservation of linear momentum are:
∑pinitial = ∑pfinal (total initial momentum equals total final momentum)
m1v1i + m2v2i = m1v1f + m2v2f (for two objects colliding)
Conservation of linear momentum is related to Newton's third law, as the principle of conservation of momentum can be derived from Newton's third law of motion. According to Newton's third law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, which means that the total momentum of a closed system remains constant.
Some real-life examples of conservation of linear momentum include a game of pool, where the total momentum of the balls remains constant after a collision, and a rocket launch, where the momentum of the rocket and the exhaust gases are equal and opposite in order to conserve momentum.