Open The Ramp simulation on Moodle and familiarize yourself with its interface.
ID: 1965254 • Letter: O
Question
Open The Ramp simulation on Moodle and familiarize yourself with its interface. In particular,notice that you can make the person push the object up the ramp or down the ramp, and you can
see a free body diagram of the object. Once you are familiar with the interface set the ramp to a
fairly low angle (say 10?) and make sure you’ve chosen an object that is reasonably heavy and has
reasonably high coefficients of friction.
(a) When the person is not pushing on the crate which way does the friction force point? What
kind of friction force is it?
(b) When the person pushes up the ramp with a small force (not enough to set the object in
motion) what happens to the frictional force?
Explanation / Answer
a) The friction force points up the ramp, because it is opposing the crates force down the ramp. This is static friction since the crate isn't able to overcome the frictional force.
b) Pushing the crate up the ramp without enough force to move it would make the frictional force opposite the push, causing it to point down the ramp.
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