A moving car has 40000 J of kinetic energy while moving at a

A moving car has 40,000 J of kinetic energy while moving at a speed of 7.0 m/s. A spring-loaded automobile bumper compresses 0.30 m when the car hits a wall and stops What can you learn about the bumper\'s spring using this information? Answer quantitatively and list the assumptions that you made.

Solution

Given that the car comes to rest position finally when it hits the wall. in this case, the restoring force of spring opposes the motion of the car. After the car hits the wall, the spring compressed 0.30 m and finall the car is stop. this means that the total kinetic energy of the car converted into potential energy stored in the spring.

the kinetic energy is,

KE = PE

KE = 0.5kx^2

   40000 = 0.5*k*0.3^2

the spring constant: k = 8.88e+5 N/m