Femme_physics said:
With T being defined as 0.5mg
Notice there are 3 T's acting on point B, with one having an angle!
It seems counter intuitive to me that there's actually MORE WEIGHT applied on the structure than the actual W's weight just because the rope changed direction. Shouldn't, instead of 2T's, it should be just 1T pointing down vertically? I'm not sure how the rope INCREASED the weight, especially if we're told it's weightless.
First off, T is not being defined, but calculated.
Actually these are a couple of free body diagrams rolled together in one.
If you look at the combination of the mass and the bottom pulley D, you'll see that T has to be half of mg to balance the vertical forces.
And yes, there are 3 T's acting on the frame.
If you take a look at the pulley in B and consider only that pulley as a free body diagram, you may be able to imagine that the rope "over" the pulley is pulling it down, which will result in reactive forces at the point where B is pinned into the frame to keep it in place.
Can you tell where the 3 T's are "grabbing" the frame?
That is, what is their working line when you want to do a moment sum?
And yes, I guess the weight mg is increased from the viewpoint of the frame.
Isn't that what pulleys do?
They are usually are applied so the weight is decreased, with the trade off that you have to pull the rope over a longer distance than you otherwise would have.
Applied "in reverse", they increase the weight.