Andrea is building a birdhouse. She hammers a nail in the wrong place and needs to remove it. She uses the back of her claw hammer to hold the nail and pushes the handle to remove the nail, as shown in the diagram.
Andrea is using the hammer as a simple machine to pry the nail out. What is the mechanical advantage of the hammer?
MA = Effort/Load
a
0.2
b
0.4
c
5.4
d
2.5
The length of the handle (effort arm) is greater than the perpendicular distance from the nail to the fulcrum (load arm) in this case, so the hammer is acting as a lever with a mechanical advantage greater than 1. Without specific measurements, it's difficult to calculate the exact mechanical advantage, but option d, 2.5, is a reasonable estimate for a typical claw hammer.
To determine the mechanical advantage (MA) of the hammer in this scenario, we need to know the values of the effort and load.
Effort refers to the force applied by Andrea, which in this case is the force she exerts on the handle of the claw hammer to remove the nail. The effort can be assumed to be the same as the force she applies with her hand.
Load refers to the resistance or force that Andrea needs to overcome to remove the nail. In this case, the load can be assumed to be the force required to pull the nail out of the birdhouse.
Since we don't have specific values for the effort and load, we cannot calculate the exact mechanical advantage of the hammer.
However, we can still determine the mechanical advantage by comparing the force required to remove the nail with and without the hammer. Using the hammer provides a mechanical advantage by applying leverage, which reduces the amount of effort needed to remove the nail compared to using only her hand.
Given the available options: a, 0.2; b, 0.4; c, 5.4; d, 2.5, we can rule out options a and b as they represent values less than 1, which would imply that more effort is required to remove the nail with the hammer than without it.
Between options c and d, we cannot definitively choose without knowing the actual values of the effort and load. However, it is generally understood that a claw hammer provides a mechanical advantage greater than 1, and a typical claw hammer may have a mechanical advantage of around 2 to 5.
Therefore, option d, 2.5, seems like a reasonable choice for the mechanical advantage of the hammer. However, it is important to note that this is an educated guess based on typical tool characteristics, and without specific values for the effort and load, we cannot be certain of the exact mechanical advantage.
To find the mechanical advantage (MA), we need to determine the effort and load.
In this case, the effort is the force that Andrea applies to push the handle of the claw hammer, and the load is the force required to remove the nail.
Since the effort and load forces are not given in the question, we cannot calculate the exact mechanical advantage.