Spring force

What is the force (in Newton) in the blue spring?

Assumptions:

  • The red connectors are rigid and do not rotate. They can only be shifted horizontally.
  • The red connector on the far left is attached to a wall.


The answer is 0.

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2 solutions

Satyabrata Dash
Oct 7, 2018

I did it without much calculations.

Just remove the 3k spring and both the spring systems (springs connected by the red connectors) turn out to be same thus facing same elongation .

Hence, same velocity.

Thus the relative velocity will be 0. So no elongation and no net force.

Tolga Gürol
Aug 16, 2018

Let magenta lines be the connector's final position.

Also, let F 1 , F 2 , F 3 , F 4 , F 5 F_1,F_2,F_3,F_4,F_5 and u 1 , u 2 , u 3 u_1,u_2,u_3 be the displacements of connectors and spring forces, respectively.

Now, we can write each force wrt. displacements and spring constants.

F 1 = u 1 × 2 k F 2 = u 2 × 2 k F 3 = ( u 2 u 1 ) × 3 k F 4 = ( u 3 u 1 ) × k F 5 = ( u 3 u 2 ) × k F_1=u_1 \times 2k\\F_2=u_2 \times 2k\\F_3=(u_2-u_1) \times 3k\\F_4=(u_3-u_1) \times k\\F_5=(u_3-u_2) \times k

List down the force equilibriums at each connector,

F 4 + F 5 = 10 N F 1 = F 3 + F 4 ( 1 ) F 5 = F 3 + F 2 ( 2 ) F_4 + F_5 = 10 N\\F_1=F_3+F_4 \space\space\cdots(1) \\F_5=F_3+F_2 \space\space\cdots(2)

Rewrite ( 1 ) (1) and ( 2 ) (2) in the form of displacements and spring constants,

F 1 = F 3 + F 4 k × 2 u 1 = k × ( 3 u 2 4 u 1 u 3 ) ( 3 ) F 5 = F 3 + F 2 k × ( u 3 u 2 ) = k × ( 5 u 2 3 u 1 ) ( 4 ) F_1=F_3+F_4 \implies k \times 2u_1 = k \times (3u_2-4u_1-u_3) \space\space\space\cdots(3) \\ F_5=F_3+F_2 \implies k \times (u_3-u_2) = k \times (5u_2-3u_1) \space\space\cdots(4)

From ( 3 ) (3) and ( 4 ) (4) we can figure out u 1 = u 2 u_1=u_2

Then the blue spring force F 3 = ( u 2 u 1 ) × 3 k = 0 F_3=(u_2-u_1) \times 3k=\boxed {0}

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