While learning to drive, you are in a 1200 kg car moving at20.0 m/s across a lar
ID: 1741667 • Letter: W
Question
While learning to drive, you are in a 1200 kg car moving at20.0 m/s across a large, vacant, level parking lot. Suddenlyyou realize you are heading straight toward a brick sidewall of alarge supermarket and are in danger of running into it. Thepavement can exert a maximum horizontal force of 7000 N on thecar. (a) Explain why you should expect the force to have awell-defined maximum value. I was easily able to answer the other questions regarding thisproblem (stopping distance, radius if vehicle swerved), but I wasunclear what the first question was asking me to explain. While learning to drive, you are in a 1200 kg car moving at20.0 m/s across a large, vacant, level parking lot. Suddenlyyou realize you are heading straight toward a brick sidewall of alarge supermarket and are in danger of running into it. Thepavement can exert a maximum horizontal force of 7000 N on thecar. (a) Explain why you should expect the force to have awell-defined maximum value. I was easily able to answer the other questions regarding thisproblem (stopping distance, radius if vehicle swerved), but I wasunclear what the first question was asking me to explain.Explanation / Answer
The maximum force depends on the structure andcomposition of the pavement as an equal and opposite force wouldalso act on it so that for a force greater than a certain value thepavement would get dislodged / broken etc. If the maximum force has a very large value it meansthat the car would be decelerated at a very high rate. Thus average force on the car being very largewould result in very high damage extent. Conversely, if the maximum force has a well definedvalue it would take longer for the car to be brought to rest andthus the avg. force experienced by the car would be smaller so thatthe damage would be less.Related Questions
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