At an airport, luggage is unloaded from a plane into the three cars of a luggage

Question

At an airport, luggage is unloaded from a plane into the three cars of a luggage carrier, as the drawing shows. The acceleration of the carrier is 0.180 m/s2, and friction is negligible. The coupling bars have negligible mass.
If 31.5 kg of luggage were removed from car 2 and placed in car 1, by how much would the tension change in coupling bars (a) A, (b) B, and (c) C?
If instead 31.5 kg of luggage were removed from car 2 and placed in car 3, by how much would the tension change in coupling bars (d) A, (e) B, and (f) C?
In each case, give your answer as a positive number if the tension increases, and negative if it decreases.

Explanation / Answer

You can write an F = ma equation for each car, where in two of the three cases F is the difference between two tensions. See if you can write the three equations and take it from there. It does turn out that each tension equals the mass of all cars trailing each bar times the acceleration.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse A
• Subjects

---

---

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.