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In science, work is the energy transferred to or from an object via the application of force along a displacement.In its simplest form, for a constant force aligned with the direction of motion, the work equals the product of the force strength and the distance traveled.
The non-mechanical work of force fields can have either positive or negative sign, work being done by the system on the surroundings, or vice versa. Work done by force fields can be done indefinitely slowly, so as to approach the fictive reversible quasi-static ideal, in which entropy is not created in the system by the process.
The joule (/ dʒ uː l / JOOL, or / dʒ aʊ l / JOWL; symbol: J) is the unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI). [1] It is equal to the amount of work done when a force of one newton displaces a mass through a distance of one metre in the direction of that force.
The kinetic energy of an object is equal to the work, force times displacement , needed to achieve its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the mass maintains this kinetic energy unless its speed changes. The same amount of work is done by the object when decelerating from its current speed to a state of rest. [2]
To every action, there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. [14]: 116 Rockets work by producing a strong reaction force downwards using rocket engines. This pushes the rocket upwards, without regard to the ground or the atmosphere.
If is the displacement, the force exerted by an ideal spring equals: =, where is the spring constant (or force constant), which is particular to the spring. The minus sign accounts for the tendency of the force to act in opposition to the applied load.
In physics, Hooke's law is an empirical law which states that the force (F) needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance (x) scales linearly with respect to that distance—that is, F s = kx, where k is a constant factor characteristic of the spring (i.e., its stiffness), and x is small compared to the total possible deformation of the spring.
In the application of the principle of virtual work it is often convenient to obtain virtual displacements from the velocities of the system. For the n particle system, let the velocity of each particle P i be V i, then the virtual displacement δr i can also be written in the form [2] = = ˙, =, …,.