Car on a Banked Road
What keeps your car on the road when turning a corner? Why
do you skid when you hit an icy patch? Why are the corners of most highway interchanges
sloped or banked? These are some of the questions that will be explored using
the applet shown on the left. In particular you will learn about:
- the normal force and the role it plays in the physics
of a car in a turn
- the frictional force and how it acts
- the force(s) needed to deflect the car in a circular
path around a corner
We will proceed by looking at 3 cases:
- car turning on a level road
- car on road banked at 90o
- car on an a road banked at any angle
