Question

A person is pulling a freight cart with a force of 58 pounds. how much work is done in moving the cart 70 feet if the cart's handle makes an angle of 27° with the ground? round your answer to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

The person is dragging with a force of 58 lbs at an angle of 27 degrees relating to the ground. We want to use cosine function to look for the horizontal force component. And then we can compute for W = (Horizontal Force) x (Distance). We want the horizontal force component since that is the component that is parallel to the direction the cart is moving. 

(cos 27 degrees)(58 lbs) = 51.69 lbs (This is the horizontal force component.) 
W = (51.69 lbs) x (70 ft) = 3618.3 ft*lbs