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stunner5000pt
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Homework Statement
Consider a roller coaster with length = 10m and mass 4000kg consisting of 5 identical carts. Ignore the length of the connector between the carts. Suppose the rolercoaster is on a track where it loses energy at a rate of 1300 J/m. The rollercoaster approaches a loop with a speed of 40m/s with radius 20m. Find the speed of the first and the last cart of the rollercoaster when each of them is at the top of the loop.
Homework Equations
Kinetic and potential energy formulas
The Attempt at a Solution
we can solve the speed of the center of the mass of the rollercoaster using the following:
[tex] E_{K1} = E_{K2} + mg (2r) + 1300 (\pi r ) [/tex]
However, how do we accoutn for the actual length of the rollercoaster? can we treat each cart independantly? If that is the case, then would simply change the value of the last term in the above expression to account for the length of the rollercoaster - for example, if we consider the lead cart, 1300 would be multiplied by pi* r - 4. Is this correct? Do we have to include the friction of each cart in this calculation?
Thanks for your help