During spring semester at MIT, residents of the parallel buildings of the East C

Question

During spring semester at MIT, residents of the parallel buildings of the East Campus dorms battle one another with large catapults that are made with surgical hose mounted on a window frame. A balloon filled with dyed water is placed in a pouch attached to the hose, which is then stretched through the width of the room. Assume that the stretching of the hose obeys Hooke's law with a spring constant of 90.0 N/m. If the hose is stretched by 2.10 m and then released, how much work does the force from the hose do on the balloon in the pouch by the time the hose reaches its relaxed length?

Explanation / Answer

The work that the hose do will be equal to the potential energy of the spring.

we know that, PE of spring is given by:

PE(spring) = 1/2 k x^2

W = PE(spring) = 1/2 x 90 x 2.1^2 = 198.45 J

Hence, W = 198.45 J

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