Saturday, February 11, 2006

free body diagram


Definition: a free body diagram is a tool to calculate the net force on an object. to construct one, you draw the object (or a cartoon representation) and indicate all the forces acting on that object. You consider only the forces action on that object, because only forces directly acting upon an object can cause it to accelerate. However, when using this in a situation with multiple particles, it is vital not to neglect inter-particle forces (like normal forces and friction).

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