<li>A small mass m1 rests on but is not attached to a large mass M2 that slides on its base without friction. The maximum frictional force between m1 and M2 is f. A spring of spring constant k is attached to the large mass M2 and to the wall shown above.
a.) Determine the maximum horizontal acceleration that M2 may ahve without causing m1 to slip.
b.) Determine the maximum amplitude A for simple harmonic motion of the two masses if they are to move together, i.e., m1 must not slip on M2.
c.) The two-mass combination is pulled to the right the maximum amplitude A found in part (b) and released. Describe the frictional force on the small mass m1 during the first half cycle of oscillation.
d.) The two-mass combination is now pulled to the right a distance A’ greater than A and released.
i.) Determine the acceleration of m1 at the instant the masses are released.
ii.) Determine the acceleration of M2 at the instant the masses are released.</li>
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<p>Any ideas you guys?:)</p>
<p>Do you have a specific question about how to approach it?</p>
<p>Yeah, I think I got part a.) and part b.) but I'm not really sure how I should set up the equations for the remaining parts of the problems.</p>
<p>For those of you who attempted to solve this challenging problem, did you get a=[Fap-kx-Ui(M1+M2)g]/M2 for part a.) and A=[(mVi)^2/k]^(1/2) for part b.)?</p>
<p>All your help is greatly appreciated folks.:)</p>
<p>No. I didn't get that. What the heck is Fap? I think you're making the problem more complicated than it is. keep in mind, that:</p>
<p>"The maximum frictional force between m1 and M2 is f. "</p>
<p>f is GIVEN. You don't need to do uN to find f. Just use f. They were lazy and gave it to you. And there should be no initial V if you're calculating max A. Vi is not given. You can't use it in your problem. It's most definitely not necessary.</p>
<p>Pebbles, I'm just totally lost <em>sigh</em> since I don't know how far you should simplify these problems!!!:( Fap=force applied btw.</p>
<p>How would you solve this problem?</p>
<p>Well, for part a, think about what it means to 'slip'. Slip means one block is moving faster than the other. One block is receiving an acceleration greater than the other. In this case, block 2 would be moving faster than block 1. But we don't want this. We want block 2 accel to be the same as that of block 1. Now we want the maximum acceleration. Well, block 2's maximum acceleration is unbounded since the spring constank k can be arbitrarily big, so the bounds come from how quickly block 1 can accelerate. What is the ONLY force applied to block 1? No others. What is the maximum magnitude of this force (it's given pretty explicitly)? What does Newton have to say about F and its relationship with A?</p>
<p>(the other thing is, keep in mind NOT to introduce variables that were not given to you. it means you don't have those measurements and you possibly have no way of acquiring them, so you cannot use them. Fap, Vi cannot be used - and anything that is NOT m1 m2 f k and later possibly A and x)</p>
<p>Here's what I'm confused about...</p>
<p>You have friction and the spring force in the x-direction and you have the normal force and the force from gravity in the y-direction. Are you telling me that the only force we should even consider is the gravitational force?</p>
<p>Help!!!</p>