Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Physics430 Lecture07
Physics430 Lecture07
Dale E. Gary
NJIT Physics Department
Chapter 4—Energy
We are now going to take up the conservation of energy, and its
implications. You have all seen this before, but now we will use a powerful,
more mathematical description.
You will see that the discussion is more complicated that the other
conservation laws for linear and angular momentum. The main reason is
that each type of momentum comes in only one flavor, whereas there are
many forms of energy (kinetic, several kinds of potential, thermal, etc.).
Processes transform one type of energy into another, and it is only the total
energy that is conserved, hence the additional complication.
We will be introducing new mathematical tools of vector calculus, such as
the gradient and the curl, which you may be familiar with, or not. I will
give you the needed background as they come up.
dT 1 d
2 m ( v v ) 12 m( v v v v ) mv v
dt dt
But the first term on the right is the force F p mv . Thus, we can write
the derivative of kinetic energy as dT
Fv
dt
Finally, multiplying both sides by dt and noting that v dt = dr, we have
dT F dr Work-KE Theorem
September 22, 2009
Line Integrals and Work
The equation just derived is only valid for an infinitesimal displacement, but
we can extend this to macroscopic displacements by integrating, to get:
r2
T F dr
r1
which says that the change in kinetic energy of a particle is equal to the
sum of force (in the direction of the displacement) times the incremental
displacement.
However, note that this is the displacement along the path of the particle.
Such an integral is called a line integral. In evaluating the integral, it is
usually possible to convert it into an ordinary integral over a single variable,
as in the following example (which we will look at in a moment).
With the notation of the line integral
2
T T2 T1 F dr W (1 2)
1
where the last is a definition, defining the work done by F in moving from
point 1 to point 2. Note that F is the net force on the particle, but we can
also add up the work done by each force separately and write:
T2 T1 Wi (1 2)
i
September 22, 2009
Example 4.1: Three Line Integrals
Evaluate the line integral for the work done by the 2-d force F = (y, 2x)
going from the origin O to the point P = (1, 1) along each of the three paths:
a) OQ then QP
b) OP along x = y
P
c) OP along a circle
Q P
Path a): Wa F dr F dr F dr
a O Q
1 1 1
ydx 2 xdy 0 2 dy 2 O Q
0 0 0
P
Path b): Wb F dr F dr
b O
1
x2
ydx 2 xdy 0 3xdx 3 1.5
P 1
0 2 0
Wc F dr
c 0
/2
sin 2
2(1 cos ) cos d
2 / 4 1.21
The point here is that the line integral depends on the path, in general (but
not for special kinds of forces, which we will introduce in a moment).
1
Reusing our earlier figure, we saw in Example 4.1 that the force described
there was NOT conservative, because it did different amounts of work for
the three paths a, b, and c.
Forces involving friction, obviously are not conservative, because if you
were sliding a box, say, on a surface with friction along the three paths
shown, the friction would do work Wfric (1 2) f fric L , where L is different
for the three paths. Such forces are non-conservative.
In words, U(r) is minus the work done by F when the particle moves from
the reference point ro to the point r.
September 22, 2009
Example 4.2: Potential Energy of a
Charge in a Uniform Electric Field
Statement of the problem:
A charge q is placed in a uniform electric field pointing in the x direction with
strength Eo, so that the force on q is F qE qEo xˆ . Show that this force is
conservative and find the corresponding potential energy.
Solution:
The work done by F in going between any two points 1 and 2 along any path
(which is negative potential energy) is:
2 2 2
W (1 2) F dr qEo xˆ dr qEo dx qEo ( x2 x1 )
1 1 1
This work done is independent of the path, because the electric force depends
only on position, i.e. the force is conservative. To find the corresponding
potential energy, we must first choose a reference point at which U is zero. A
natural choice is to choose our origin (the point 1), in which case the potential
energy is
U (r ) W (0 r ) qEo x
You may recall that Eo x is the electric potential V, so that qV is the potential
energy.
September 22, 2009
Several Forces
The potential energy can be defined even when more than one force is
acting, so long as all of the forces are conservative. An important example
is when both gravity Fgrav and a spring force Fspr are acting (so long as the
spring obeys Hooke’s Law, F(r) = kr).
The work-kinetic energy theorem says that if we move an object subject to
these two forces along some path, the forces will do work independent of
the path (depending only on the two end-points of the path) given by
T Wgrav Wspr (U grav U spr )
Rearrangement shows that
(T U grav U spr ) 0
hence total mechanical energy is conserved. Extended to n such forces:
Principle of Conservation of Energy for One Particle
If all of the n forces Fi (i=1…n) acting on a particle are conservative, each with its
corresponding potential energy Ui(r), the total mechanical energy defined as
E T U T U1 (r ) U n (r )
is constant in time.
September 22, 2009
Nonconservative Forces
As we have seen, not all forces are conservative, meaning we cannot define
a corresponding potential energy. As you might guess, in that case we
cannot define a conserved mechanical energy.
Nevertheless, if there are some conservative forces acting, for which a
potential energy can be defined, then we can divide the forces into a
conservative part Fcons, and a nonconservative part Fnc, such that
T Wcons Wnc
U Wnc
which allows us to write
(T U ) Wnc
What this says is that mechanical energy (T + U) is no longer conserved,
but any changes in mechanical energy are precisely equal to the work done
by the nonconservative forces.
In many problems, the only nonconservative force is friction, which acts in
the direction opposite the motion so that the work f dr is negative.
where d is the distance along the incline, and y is the change in height.
If the block starts out with zero initial velocity at the top of the incline, and
we ask what is the speed v at the bottom, then y = h = d sin , so
2 mv mgd sin mgd cos v 2 gd (sin cos )
2
1
or
U ( x) 12 kx 2