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Adam asked in Science & MathematicsPhysics · 1 decade ago

Does more weight and more speed equals more energy?

Is there a way to guess the amount of power produced by an automobile engine, just going by Mass and Speed?

For instance if the vehicle weighs 100Tons and can travel at a speed of 180MPH, what is the likely power output of the engine? Also at that kind of speed and weight, would the kinetic energy be quite feared by others? What are the chances that I would survive a collision if one occurred with another normal car.

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Yes, kinetic energy = (1/2)mv^2. So it increases with mass and with speed.

    I don't have the data to be able to calculate the power output. The reason you would need power to sustain a constant speed is to overcome friction, which for a ground vehicle means air friction and rolling friction with the tires. So you need some assumptions about size, number of tires, cross section area, etc and some reference data for typical coefficients of friction.

    At that speed and mass, the chances of surviving a collision with a car are zero. A tractor trailer is much less massive than that, and in a collision with a tractor trailer at normal highway speeds, automobile passengers don't have much chance.

    I had an encounter with a smallish truck that didn't see me and switched into a lane that I was already in. I was flicked off the road like a bug. I'm fortunate that it was more of a glancing blow. It sent me into a horizontal spin into the guardrail, but after spinning around 4 or 5 times we came to a halt, still upright, and relatively uninjured.

  • Fred
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago

    Weight is not significant. Mass is. Energy is dependent upon mass and velocity.

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