Hi all
Why is 500lb of pressure over a short period of time. Such as a few seconds, so much less damaging than 500lb of pressure instantly/impact
Can someone explain
In: 0
Because that’s not how forces work
A 250 kg weight is just pushing downwards with 2500 N of force(gravity is 10 m/s^2 for convenience, yay rounding!) That’s just the block sitting there
Drop it from 10 meters up and it’ll be doing 10 m/s at impact 1 second later. To bring it to zero speed over another 10 meters would take 2500 newtons of force to support it’s weight and another 2500N to decelerate it at the same rate.
Stopping it in a shorter distance requires significantly more force/acceleration to bring it to a stop quicker. More force = more damage
Stopping it in 0.1 meters would take 0.02 seconds requiring 127,500N, and stopping it in 1 mm takes 1,252,500N
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