Tension and Force diagram help

[frownifdown]

Two buckets of sand hand from opposite ends of a rope that passes over an ideal pulley. One bucket is full and weighs 118 N; the other is only partly filled and weighs 58 N. After the buckets are released and allowed to move what is the tension in the rope



I drew a force diagram but all I have are the two forces that are given to me. I'm not sure what other forces I need to put into solve this.

 

[phinds]

(1) use the template
(2) show your work

 

[Panphobia]

Sum all forces in the y direction on your FBD(more than just 118 and 58). Just to be clear do you know what 118N and 58N are forces of? You will need to know this.

 

[Chestermiller]

Call T the tension in the rope, and do a free body diagram on each of the buckets, along with a vertical 2nd law force balance on each of the buckets. Eliminate T between the two force balances. How are the accelerations of the two buckets related?

 

[Nickie]

The tension in the rope can be calculated by using the principles of Newton's laws of motion. In this scenario, there are two forces acting on the rope - the weight of the full bucket (118 N) and the weight of the partially filled bucket (58 N). These two forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction, causing the rope to experience a net force of 60 N downwards.

Since the rope is considered an ideal pulley, it is assumed to be massless and frictionless. This means that the tension in the rope is constant throughout its length, and equal to the net force acting on it. Therefore, the tension in the rope can be calculated by taking the difference between the weights of the two buckets, which is 60 N.

In summary, the tension in the rope is equal to the net force acting on it, which is equal to the difference between the weights of the two buckets. This is a simple application of Newton's second law, which states that the net force on an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration. In this case, the acceleration of the buckets is due to the force of gravity, and the tension in the rope is the force that balances out the weight of the buckets.