Question

A 1200-kg car is being driven up a 5.0o hill. The frictional force is directed opposite to the motion of the car and has a magnitude of f = 524 N. A force F is applied to the car by the road and propels the car forward. In addition to these two forces, two other forces act on the car: its weight W and the normal force FN directed perpendicular to the road surface. The length of the road up the hill is 290 m. What should be the magnitude of F, so that the net work done by all the forces acting on the car is +150 kJ?

Answer 1

I suppose the hill makes an angle of 5.0° with the horizontal.

• F acts parallel to the road and in the direction of the car's motion, so it contributes a positive amount of work, F (290 m).

• Friction does negative work on the car since it opposes the car's motion. As the car moves up the slope, the work done by friction is (-524 N) (290 m) = -151,960 J.

• The car's weight has components that act parallel and perpendicular to the road. The parallel component has a magnitude of W sin(5.0°) and points down the slope, so it contributes negative work of -(1200 kg) g sin(5.0°) ≈ 1,024.95 J. The perpendicular component of W does not do any work.

• The normal force FN also doesn't do any work to move the car up the slope because it points perpendicular to the road, so we can ignore it, too.

The net work done on the car is then

F (290 m) + (-151,960 J) + 1,024.95 J = 150,000 J

==>   F (290 m) ≈ 300,935 J

==>   F ≈ (300,935 J) / (290 m) ≈ 1,037.71 N