A car with inertia 1200kg is driving through a parking lot. A wheeled platform of inertia 1800kg has just been unloaded from a flatbed truck. It gets away from them and is moving toward the car at a velocity of +2.5 m/s . The car cannot avoid it, and the two "objects" collide head on, with the car moving -5 m/s the instant before the collision. Use the car and platform as your system for this problem.
(a) If the speed of the platform is -2.0 m /s immediately after the collision, what kind of collision is this (totally inelastic, inelastic, or elastic)? You must prove your answer.
(b) What is the change in internal energy of the system for this collision?
(c) What is the coefficient of restitution for this collision?
(d) Does the change in internal energy of a system increase or decrease if the coefficient of restitution gets smaller? Briefly justify your answer.
(e) What is the velocity of the zero-momentum frame?
(f) Find the center-of-mass kinetic energy for the system.
(g) Find the kinetic energy for the system in the zero momentum frame before the collision.
(h) What is the minimum amount of kinetic energy required to conserve the momentum of the system?
(i) What are the upper and lower limits on how much kinetic energy can be converted to other forms for this system for the entire range of inelastic collisions?
(j) What is the momentum of the system in the frame of reference of a jogger approaching the collision at 1.0 m/s in the same direction as the car's initial velocity?