A dog sled team is pulling a sled across a flat patch of snow. The total force exerted by the four dogs is 475 N (applied horizontally). The sled (with driver on it) weighs 350 kg. and the coefficient of kinetic friction between the sled and the ground is
(a) What is the normal force on the sled (with the driver)? - For this I got 3,430N
Ws = mg = 350kg * 9.8N/kg = 3430 N. = Wt of sled incl. load.
(b) What is the force of friction on the sled (with the driver)?
(c) Determine the acceleration of the sled.
a. Correct
The last sentence in your problem is incomplete.
To find the normal force on the sled (with the driver), you have correctly calculated the weight of the sled including the load (Ws) using the formula Ws = mg, where m is the mass of the sled and g is the acceleration due to gravity (9.8 N/kg). Plugging in the given values, you correctly found Ws to be 3430 N.
(b) To find the force of friction on the sled, you can use the formula Ffriction = μ * Fn, where μ is the coefficient of kinetic friction and Fn is the normal force. Given that you calculated the normal force to be 3430 N, you now need to find the coefficient of kinetic friction. Unfortunately, the coefficient of kinetic friction is not given in the question, so you cannot determine the force of friction without this information.
(c) To determine the acceleration of the sled, you can use Newton's second law of motion:
∑F = ma
Here, ∑F represents the net force acting on the sled, m is the mass of the sled (including the load), and a is the acceleration of the sled. The net force is given by the difference between the force exerted by the dogs (475 N) and the force of friction (Ffriction). Thus, you can write:
475 N - Ffriction = ma
Since you do not have the value for Ffriction, you cannot directly calculate the acceleration of the sled. However, if you were to obtain the coefficient of kinetic friction (μ), you could substitute it into the equation and find the acceleration using the given values.