Unit: Energy Module: Conservation of Energy [page 1 of 2]

Work and Nonconservative Forces

• You can use the equation ∆K + ∆U = Wother to solve problems involving external or
nonconservative forces.

This looks like a problem that is easily solved using

conservation of mechanical energy.

Setting the initial energy equal to the final energy,

you find that the final velocity is 2gh .
Unfortunately, if you were to perform an experiment
in real life to verify this result, you would measure a
final velocity substantially lower than this value.
What's wrong?
The problem is that there is a large amount of
friction in the system. Since friction is a
nonconservative force, you need to use the general
form of conservation of mechanical energy.

If the frictional force is constant with magnitude fk ,

the work done by friction is equal to −fk L .

The final velocity comes out to be less than before,

as expected.

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Copyright  2001, Thinkwell Corp. All Rights Reserved. 1989.doc –rev 04/11/2001
 Unit: Energy Module: Conservation of Energy [page 2 of 2]

Work and Nonconservative Forces

In this example, an external force of 1 N is applied

to a cart on an air track. If you try to find the final
velocity of the cart using the equation ∆K + ∆U = 0 ,
the result would not make sense ( v f = 0 ).

Again, the problem is that you need to use the

general form of conservation of energy. The 1 N
force applied to the cart is external to the system
and needs to be taken into account by the term
Wother .

Note that you could have solved this problem with

Newton's laws. In general, there are many different
ways to approach any particular problem. Use the
approach that you are most comfortable with.

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Copyright  2001, Thinkwell Corp. All Rights Reserved. 1989.doc –rev 04/11/2001