Question

You place a box weighing 268.3 N on an inclined plane that makes a 42◦ angle with the horizontal.

Compute the component of the gravitational force acting down the inclined plane.

Answer in units of N.

Answer 1

Wy = - 268.3*cos(42) = - 199.38 [N]

Wx = 268.3*sin(42) = 179.52 [N]

Step-by-step explanation:

To solve this problem we must make a free body diagram, in the attached image we can see a free body diagram.

Taking the inclined X & y axes with the same angle of 42°, we can see that the weight can be decomposed on both axes.

Since the angle is adjacent to the y-axis, we can use the cosine function

Wy = - 268.3*cos(42) = - 199.38 [N]

Wx = 268.3*sin(42) = 179.52 [N]