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Car Slides Down Icy Driveway

Here we have a Free Body Diagram of the white Mini Cooper in the video sliding down an icy driveway. Since there is a slight incline, gravity acts upon the car in the x direction as MGsin(theta) as well as friction that keeps the car from sliding. F= μN is the equation that would be used to calculate the friction acting upon the car. This friction could then be used to find the coefficient of friction between the ice and the rubber tires. 


The known information that can be filled into these equations is the mass and the angle. The car has a mass of 1270.059kg. The angle of the driveway is 15 degrees. The normal force is 12,021. The acceleration needs to be found through kinematics. 
Once this is found, μ can be found in the first equation. 
With these calculations, μ is found to be .5951



Comments

  1. Mr GrayJanuary 4, 2018 at 2:23 PM

    Good calculations. Do they really calculate the coefficient of friction between the tire and driveway? Of somewhere else?

    ReplyDelete

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