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Welcome to our Physics lesson on What happens if there is no equilibrium in a turning system?, this is the fourth lesson of our suite of physics lessons covering the topic of Moment of Force. Conditions of Equilibrium, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional physics learning resources below this lesson.
In such a case, the system is not balanced. This means there will be a non-zero resultant moment in the direction of the greatest turning effect. Consider the example below.
Three forces act on the system shown below.
What is the resultant moment of force if cos 300 = 0.86, sin 300 = 0.5, cos 530 = 0.6 and sin 530 = 0.8?
In this system, the 100 N and the 60 N force tend to rotate the system clockwise while the 120 N force create an anticlockwise turning effect. Thus, if we index the forces (and distances from the turning point) as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right, we have for the resultant moment of force MR:
Substituting the values, and giving that sin 900 = 1, we obtain:
Since we have chosen clockwise as positive, the result obtained means there is a non-zero resultant moment of force in the anticlockwise direction. Therefore, the whole system rotates anticlockwise by 476 N × m.
You have reached the end of Physics lesson 6.4.4 What happens if there is no equilibrium in a turning system?. There are 7 lessons in this physics tutorial covering Moment of Force. Conditions of Equilibrium, you can access all the lessons from this tutorial below.
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