A wagon is being pulled along level ground by exerting a force of...

Question

A wagon is being pulled along the level ground by exerting a force of 50 pounds on a handle that makes an angle of 28° with the horizontal. How much work, to the nearest foot-pound, is done by pulling the wagon 15 feet?

I need help on solving this problem please :)

Answer 1

Notice that the wagon is being pulled both upwards and horizontally (we'll say to the right).

You can find these two separate forces by doing some trigonometry.

If we were to draw out a triangle with the 50 pound force being in the direction 28 degrees above the horizontal (this 50 pound force would be the hypotenuse of our triangle) then we see the force in the upward direction is 50sin 28 and the force in the horizontal direction is 50 cos 28.

The upward force is perpendicular to the direction of the wagon, so no work is done there

The horizontal force is in the same direction as the direction of the wagon, so to calculate the work we can just do (50cos 28) * 15