Inclined Plane |
Demo | Novice | Advanced Student | Teacher |
Explored concepts
- mass, weight and gravity
- Second and Third Newton Law
- decomposition of forces
- friction (static and dynamic)
Discussion topics
- weight of a cosmonaut on Earth and on the Moon
- dynamics of human walk
- Why we decompose the weight in parallel and normal component?
The static friction can be measured by gradually increasing the inclination angle until the block starts sliding. At that moment, the friction is barely smaller than the weight component along the plane. The dynamic friction, which exists when the block is sliding down, is smaller than the static friction. It can be estimated by comparing the measured acceleration of the block and the the acceleration calculated on the previous page, where the dynamic friction is assumed to be zero.
Describe how time gates can be used to measure the actual acceleration. Derive equations to support this measurement.