Question

Help, please!
Title: Equilibrium of forces.
Basically I need to calculate the resultant force using the parallelogram law and accurate measurement of theta.
I was provided with the diagram below ( I will attach it) by a group of students who conducted the lab ( I was absent that day). And, because of that, I have no idea what to do.
Thanks

Answer 1

In order to be able to add the forces together to find the net force (the resultant force), you'll need to separate each of the forces into horizontal and vertical components. Take the force pointing to the upper left. We can pretend that force is the sum of a horizontal and vertical force itself:



We know the magnitude of the force (50 g - although if you have a sec can you tell me what the g means in this example?), which happens to be the hypotenuse of this right-angled triangle. Also, if we know the angle indicated in the bottom right corner, we can figure out the magnitudes of the horizontal and vertical sides (component forces). And we can figure out this angle! It's 140 degrees from the direction of the upper-left force to the force pointing straight down. If we subtract 90 degrees from that, we're left with the angle we want - which is 50 degrees. Now you can do some basic trig to find the other sides of the triangle.

Repeat this process for the force pointing to the upper right. Then add together all the horizontal components, and add together all the vertical components, and then use the parallelogram rule to add together the two forces you get to find the resultant force!

It's a bit late over here but I wanted to give you something to work with at least so I hope that was sort of clear. If you have any questions please ask!

Answer 2

Thank you very much ^_^ Also, I need to draw a free body diagram and join the forces (F1 and F2) to obtain a parallelogram. Do I draw this on graph paper or A4 paper? Which is more appropriate? Plus, When i tried connecting the F1 and F2 lines, my parallelogram had not connected directly at the diagonal of the polygon. Any tips as to how I should draw this?

Massive thanks :)