A conveyor belt ramp of length 7m is inclined at 20° with respect to the horizontal and is used to move objects from one location to another location. When an object is placed on the conveyor belt, the object travels up the incline with a constant speed of 1.5 ms . A motor is used to keep the conveyor belt moving. The mass of the objects that are placed on the conveyor belt are varied.
For the system that only includes the object, which of the following claims best describes what happens to the mechanical energy of the system while the object is moving from the bottom of the ramp to the top of the ramp?
Object X and object Y are placed on the incline such that the motor moves the conveyor belt. The mass of object X is greater than the mass of object Y. After both objects have been placed on the conveyor belt and travel at a constant speed, how does the rate of change of the gravitational potential energy of the object X-Earth system per unit of time ΔUg/XΔt compare to that for the object Y-Earth system ΔUgY/Δt ?
