A woman wearing high-heeled shoes stands on a wooden floor. Her total weight is 480N and acts equally on each foot.
Sometimes all this weight acts on the heels of her shoes. What is the pressure under her heels?
To calculate the pressure under the woman's heels, we need to find the force applied to each heel and divide it by the area of contact.
Given that the woman's total weight is 480N and acts equally on each foot, we can determine that each foot bears half the weight, which is 240N.
Now, to find the force applied to each heel, we need to assume that the entire weight is acting on the heels. This means that each heel bears half of the weight of the foot, which is 240N/2 = 120N.
To find the pressure, we need to divide the force applied to each heel by the area of contact. The area of contact is typically much smaller for the heel compared to the entire foot. However, without more specific information, we can make a general assumption that the area of the heel is around 2 cm x 2 cm, or 4 cm².
Now, we convert the area from cm² to m² by dividing it by 10,000 (as there are 10,000 cm² in 1 m²). Therefore, the area of contact is 4 cm² / 10,000 = 0.0004 m².
Finally, we divide the force applied to each heel (120N) by the area of contact (0.0004 m²) to find the pressure:
Pressure = Force / Area
Pressure = 120N / 0.0004 m²
Pressure = 300,000 N/m²
Therefore, the pressure under the woman's heels is 300,000 N/m² (or 300 kPa).