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 0.192 m/s2, and friction is negligible. The coupling bars have negligible mass. If 37.7 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 37.7 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

I will assume car 1 is at the front, car 2 is in the middle, and 3 is at the back, and that coupling bar A is between the luggage carrier and car 1, B is between car 1 & 2, and C is between 2 & 3.



a) If 37.7 kg of luggage were removed from car 2 and placed in car 1:

A is pulling cars 1, 2, & 3 so:
The tension in A would not change, since the tension in A is pulling all three cars and the total mass of all three has not changed, just been moved a bit.

B is pulling cars 2 & 3 so:
The tension in B would DECREASE because the tension in B is pulling cars 2 & 3, and there are now 39kg less mass in car 2. The amount the tension would decrease by is:
F=ma
F= 37.7kg * 0.192m/s

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