"Published in Newark, California, USA"
Determine the x and y components of each of the forces shown in the figure. Also, determine the resultant of the forces and its direction.
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| Photo by Math Principles in Everyday Life |
Solution:
The first thing that we need to do is to draw the rectangular component of the given forces and then isolate into x and y components as follows
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| Photo by Math Principles in Everyday Life |
By using trigonometric functions of right triangles, we can solve for the x and y components of the three given forces.
For F = 390 lbs:
For P = 300 lbs:
The sum of the x components of the three given forces is
The sum of the y components of the three given forces is
Since the sign of Rx and Ry are both negative, then they are located at the 3rd quadrant as shown in the figure
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| Photo by Math Principles in Everyday Life |
By Pythagorean Theorem, the value of the resultant of the given three forces is
The direction of the resultant is
