We did an acceleration experiment with cars on a flat track and had a photogate

Question

We did an acceleration experiment with cars on a flat track and had a photogate and excel calculate our accelerations and our uncterainty. However, we have to decide if the acceleration of the cars significantly depends on the speed or the direction of travel.

I emailed and got the response

we know that the acceleration of the car is only due to friction, because the friction is the only force that exerting on the car. We also know that the friction between the car and the track does not depend on speed(The friction only depends on the weight of the car and the coefficient of friction), however there is another kind of friction which is negligible in our case and that is air friction which depends on the speed of the car, but this kind of friction as so small in low speeds. Your accelerations may vary a little bit but Even for opposite direction we expect to get almost the same result.

Is this saying that the acceleration does not depend on the speed of the car or the direction of travel, but depends on friction alone?

I just do not currently understand physics well enough to understand what I'm answering

Explanation / Answer

There are 2 kind of forces that acts on car

1.Frictional force

2.air drag: it depends on velocity

There are 3 kinds of acceleration that car undergoes

1. decceleration due to friction

2.deceleration due to air drag:negligible

3.acceleration to increase provided by engine

Air drag and friction try to slow down the car. So if car needs to accelerate of even to move at constant velocity, it must overcome deceleration due to friction. Engine provide acceleration in this case

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