In Haiti, public transportation is often by taptaps, small pickup trucks with se

Question

In Haiti, public transportation is often by taptaps, small pickup trucks with seats along the sides of the pickup bed and railings to which passengers can hang on. Typically they carry two dozen or more passengers plus an assortment of chickens, goats, luggage, etc. Putting this much into the back of a pickup truck puts quite a large load on the truck springs.

A truck has springs for each wheel, but for simplicity assume that the individual springs can be treated as one spring with a spring constant that includes the effect of all the springs. Also for simplicity, assume that all four springs compress equally when weight is added to the truck and that the equilibrium length of the springs is the length they have when they support the load of an empty truck.

Part A A 66kg driver gets into an empty taptap to start the day's work. The springs compress 2*10^-2m . What is the effective spring constant of the spring system in the taptap? Enter the spring constant numerically in newtons per meter using two significant figures.

Explanation / Answer

We know that F = kx. Therefore:

66kg * g = -k(2*10-2)
-66N = -0.02k (the force is negative because gravity is downward)
k = 32373

And to 2 significant figures:

k = 3.2*104 N/m

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