If the weight of a vehicle is doubled, would the deceleration of the vehicle be doubled? For example if a car decelerated at 6m/s, would a car double the size, decelerate at 12m/s or is their some other factor involved?
Thanks for your help
How fast a car decelerates depends upon how strong a force is applied to the brakes, unless the tires skid. If that happens, the friction force is proportional to the weight, so the deceleration rate is
(Friction force/mass)
which is independent of weight. This assumes the skidding tire kinetic friction coefficient ramains the same.
To determine whether the deceleration of a vehicle would be doubled if its weight is doubled, we need to consider Newton's second law of motion, which states that the force acting on an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration.
In the case of a car decelerating, the force responsible for deceleration is provided by the brakes. When the brakes are applied, they oppose the motion of the vehicle, creating a force that brings it to a stop. This force is proportional to the mass of the car and the deceleration.
If the weight of the car is doubled, the force needed to decelerate the car would also need to be doubled to bring it to the same rate of deceleration. Consequently, the braking force required would be twice as much as before.
However, the deceleration itself is dependent on both the force and the mass of the object being decelerated. Since the mass has increased while the force has doubled, the deceleration will remain the same as before. This means that even though the vehicle's weight has doubled, the car will decelerate at the same rate of 6m/s².
It's worth noting that this explanation assumes all other factors, such as road conditions, tire grip, and other external forces, remain constant. Changes to these factors can also affect the deceleration of the vehicle.