When you are on an elevator moving with POSITIVE ACCELERATION, the normal force felt by your body is ____________________ when you are simply standing on the ground.

Question

When you are on an elevator moving with POSITIVE ACCELERATION, the normal force felt by your body is ____________________ when you are simply standing on the ground.

-less than

-greater than

-the same as

Answer 1

Because of acceleration, the elevator cannot be considered as inertial system. To convert the system in an inertial you need to compensate this acceleration, as if there is an equal and opposite directed acceleration of the elevator. That means there is additional force exerts on the passenger F_inertial=am, directed down and net acceleration of the system (elevator and passenger) is zero.

 Then free-body-diagram will be the following (see below)

 That is, net force equals to zero, and you can write: N-mg-ma=0, or N=mg+ma.

Finally, the answer is- greater than.

⇓mg ⇓ma ⇑N

Answer 2

If upward is positive than,

N-mg=ma

N =mg+ma

answer: greater than