Newton’s Laws of Motion Problems

1. Ten men make up a tug-of-war team. Each team member can produce 250N of pulling
force.
a. What is the tension in the rope if the other tug-of-war team exert the same force?
b. The second team have only 7 members. What is the force produced by each
member?

2. A mass of 150 Kg hangs from a rope. If Óctavio applies a horizontal force to it she can
push it so that it moves to an angle of 45o away from the vertical. Calculate:
a. The tension in the rope
b. The force Octavio must apply to keep the mass in that position

3. A car with the mass 850 kg is decelerated from 40 ms-1 by the net force 200 N for 2.3
seconds. How far will it move during this?

4. A train has an acceleration of 0.53 m s-2 and a mass of 250t (1t = 1 tonne = 1000kg).
Calculate the force required to cause this acceleration.

5. An electron, mass 9.11 x 10-31 kg, has a force of 2.80 x 10-13 N acting on it when in a
cathode ray tube. Calculate its acceleration.

6. A helicopter of mass 5000kg is rising with an acceleration of 2.4 m s-2. What thrust must
be exerted on it by its rotor?

7. An airplane of total mass 30 000kg needs to be able to take off within a distance of
1200m on a runway that is 2200m long. The extra distance is necessary for safety
reasons. If the take-off and landing speeds of the plane are both 60 m s-1, find

a) the constant acceleration needed to reach take-off speed in 1200m

b) the resultant force on the airplane during this acceleration
c) the thrust provided by the engines if the drag due to ground and wind resistance
is taken to have a constant value of 10 000N.
d) On landing, the mass of the airplane has decreased to 25 000kg. (Why?) What
minimum force is necessary to stop it on the runway within the safe distance of
1200m?

8. A lift has a mass 1800kg and the rope supporting it exerts an upward force on it of
15000N. What is the acceleration of the lift? If this lift is traveling upwards at a velocity of
3.8 m s-1, how long will it take to stop?

9. A train of mass 1.4 x 105 kg accelerates uniformly from rest along a level track. It travels
100m in the first 26s.

Calculate
a) the acceleration of the train
b) the speed reached after 26s
c) the resultant force required to produce this acceleration
10. Whilst braking, a car of mass 1200kg decelerates along a level road at
8.0 m s-2

a) If air resistance can be assumed to be negligible, calculate the horizontal force of the
road on the car.
b) Calculate the vertical force exerted by the road on the car.
c) Using a scale drawing or otherwise, calculate the magnitude and direction of the
resultant force of the road on the car.

11. A spacecraft, of mass 4500kg, which is landing on the Moon, uses its engine to keep its
speed of descent constant at 5.0 m s-1 from the time when the craft is 14m above the
Moon’s surface until it is 4.0m above the surface. The engines are then switched off and
the spacecraft falls freely to the Moon’s surface.
The acceleration of free fall on the Moon is 1.6 m s-2.
Calculate, for the spacecraft,
a) the speed of the impact
b) the time taken to fall the last 4.0 m
c) the time taken to fall the full 14m

12. This question is about the motion of a car.

A car of mass 800kg travels along a straight level road. The figure shows a graph of
speed against time.

a) Use the figure to find

i) the initial acceleration
ii) the resultant force accelerating the car during the first 12s
iii) the total distance traveled
iv) the average speed for the journey

b) the engine produces a driving force of 300N in the time interval between A and
i) Suggest a reason why the car does not accelerate