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Solving Resultant Force Gcse Questions

In this article I go over how to solve resultant force questions at GCSE level

Date : 09/04/2021

Author Information

Kemi

Uploaded by : Kemi
Uploaded on : 09/04/2021
Subject : Physics

The mass of a car is 1120 kg. The mass of the driver is 80 kg.Calculate the resultant force acting on the car and driver while accelerating.


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The best way to tackle these kinds of questions is to first work out the information we ve been given and what we know. Most physics questions involve you working out an unknown so let s work backwards to find out what this unknown is.

what we know

car mass: 1120 kg

driver mass: 80 kg

acceleration of car: 1.5 m/s2

this gives us a total mass of 1200kg

Now that we have highlighted this information the next step is working out what we are being asked.

resultant force is the overall force acting on an object. In this case we are being asked to find out the sum of all forces acting on the car while it s accelerating. Let`s recall the equation for resultant force:

resultant force= mass x acceleration

We already have the acceleration 1.5 m/s2 as given to us in the question.

we just need the mass now! When considering resultant force acting on the car there are 2 masses we have to consider are being acted against.

- the weight of the car

- the weight of the driver

Which we have already calculated is a sum of: 1200kg.

Now have all our numbers, we can start plugging them in to the eqaution

mass (kg) x acceleration (m/s2)= resultant force (N)

1200 x 1.5 = 1800N


so our resultant force is 1800N!

This resource was uploaded by: Kemi

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