Physics Problem

Question

Acceleration is sometimes expressed in multiples of g, where g = 9.8 m/s^2 is the acceleration of an object due to the earth's gravity. In a car crash, the car's forward velocity may go up from 29 m/s to 0 m/s in 0.15s. How many g's are experienced, on average, by the driver?

Answer 1

We need to determine the instantaneous acceleration that happened during the car crash. This can be expressed as:

a = ΔV/t = V₂ - V₁/t = (29 - 0)/0.15 = 193.33 m/s²

Now we can divide by gravity to obtain how many g's were experienced:

g = 193.33/9.8 = 19.72 g's of force