A rectangular glass block of dimensions 30 cm by 5 cm by 10 cm weight 37.5 N calculate the least and greatest pressure it can exert when resting on a horizontal table. Can anybody help me with this?
2 Answers
Explanation:
Pressure is defined through the equation:
where
So, we got the rectangular block with dimensions
Since the force is constant, we can let
Therefore, pressure is inversely proportional to area, i.e. bigger area equals less pressure, smaller area equals bigger pressure.
So, we would want to apply the force on the face of the block with the smallest dimensions if we want to find the largest pressure, i.e. that is
So, the maximum pressure will be
If we want to apply the least possible pressure, we must apply the force on the face with the biggest dimensions, and that is
Therefore, the pressure here will be
Greater Pressure
Lesser Pressure
Explanation:
We know that
Where...
Our glass block has dimensions of
And so the two surface areas we can use are...
So now that we have our two surface areas, we can calculate our pressures.
Greater Pressure
Lesser Pressure