Question

Car B is following Car A and has a greater speed than Car A. the two cars are moving in a straight line and in the same direction, and have the same mass. in situation one, Car A is traveling at 10 mph and car B at 20 mph. in situation 2, car A is traveling at 30 mph and car B at 40 mph. assuming a perfectly inelastic collision in which the cars stick together after the collision, what will be true?

Answer 1

Answer:

Collision force will be same in both the cases.

Explanation:

A perfectly inelastic collision is said to take place  when a system loses the amount of its Kinetic Energy at its maximum. In a perfectly inelastic collision,  the colliding particles stick to each other. In such a collision, kinetic energy is lost by combining the two bodies with each other.

In situation 1:

Speed of Car A, $v_{A} = 10 mph$

Speed of Car B, $v_{B} = 20 mph$

Relative speed of car A and car B, $v = v_{b} - v_{a} = 10 m/s$

Now, in the situation 2:

Speed of car A, $v_{A} = 30 mph$

Speed of car B, $v_{B} = 40 mph$

Relative speed of car A and car B, $v = v_{b} - v_{a} = 10 m/s$

Therefore, Car A and Car B both have the same relative speed, v = 10 m/s