Force and Circular Motion at a Constant Speed Problems
Radial Force Components
Because of your physics background, you have been hired as a member of the team the state highway department has assigned to review the safety of Minnesota freeways. This week you are studying 35W which has a curve which is essentially 1/8 of a circle with a radius of 0.5 miles. The road has been designed with a banked curve so that the road makes an angle of 4û to the horizontal throughout the curve. To begin the study, the head of your department asks that you calculate the maximum speed for a standard passenger car (about 2000 lbs) to complete the turn while maintaining a horizontal path along the road. She asks that you first consider the case of a slick, ice covered road. When you have completed that calculation she wants you to do the case of a dry, clear road where the coefficient of kinetic friction is 0.70 and the coefficient of static friction is 0.80 between the tires and the road. This will give her team the two extremes of Minnesota driving conditions on which to base the analysis.