A girl pushes a box that has a mass of 85 kilograms of an incline. If the girl exerts a force of 20 newtons on the incline what is the mechanical advantage of the incline

Answer 1

mechanical advantage of the ramp = length / height which is the cosecant of the slope angle Θ. Using a free body diagram mgcosΘ =20N cosΘ= 20/mg (1-sin²Θ)^1/2= 20/85*9.8 =20/833 squaring both sides gives

1-sin²Θ = 400/693889 solving for sinΘ gives (1 - 400/693889)^1/2 so sinΘ =.999 the cosecant of Θ = 1/sinΘ. So the mechanical advantage of the ramp is 1/.999 =1.00