Newton's laws and working with systems

[dranseth]

Homework Statement

Say you have three carts connected by strings, with each cart's mass being 50kg, which way would the tension for be pointed in a free body diagram? By the way, the carts are accelerating..

[]-[]-[]

accelerating --> @ 3m/s/s

 

[G01]

In this problem there is more then one object with forces acting on it. Which box are you drawing a free body diagram for?

 

[dranseth]

I drew one for the entire system

 

[G01]

OK, well the tension is not going to point in the same direction for each block. For example:

Which way does the tension from rope one pull block one? Which way does the same tension force pull block 2?

You need to add more than one tension vector to the diagram, one for each block the tension force pulls on.

I suggest making a separate free body diagram for each block, since it would not be possible to draw the tension in the free body diagram for the system as whole because they are internal forces.

 

[dranseth]

I'm not quite sure I understand how to do this.

 

[dranseth]

so when you are solving for the tension in the 2 strings, would one of the equations have m=the systems entire mass, and the other will have m=only 2 blocks?

 

[G01]

Could you please post the entire problem? I can't offer much help if I don't know what you are trying to solve for.

I am also going to need to see some of your work to give further help. What have you done so far? What forces are involved, etc.

 

[dranseth]

4. Given the following system of 50kg carts that accelerate at 3m/s/s with a coefficient of friction of .1 then;[]------[]------[]-------->

...^B...^A...^F1

a) find the force that creates the acceleration on the system. (as if it were frictionless)
F1=ma
=150kg(3m/s/s)
=450N

b)calculate the total frictional force and the force of f1.
Ff+f1=ma
-147N+F1=450
F1=597N

c)calculate the tension in string A and B.

 

[G01]

For part c) you need to think of each block separately.

HINT: Find the sum of the forces on each block separately. Then use Newton's second law to relate those sums to the acceleration. You should now have a system of three equations. Can you use that to find your tension values?