A railroad car moving at a speed of 3.46 m/s overtakes, collides and couples with two coupled railroad cars moving in the same direction at 1.40 m/s. All cars have a mass of mass 1.6 104 kg. Determine the following.(a) speed of the three coupled cars after the collision (Give your answer to at least 2 decimal places.) m/s(b) kinetic energy lost in the collision J

Explanation:

m = Mass of each the cars =

= Initial velocity of first car = 3.46 m/s

= Initial velocity of the other two cars = 1.4 m/s

v = Velocity of combined mass

As the momentum is conserved in the system we have

Speed of the three coupled cars after the collision is .

As energy in the system is conserved we have

The kinetic energy lost during the collision is .

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