Question

A car accelerates from rest with an acceleration of 5 m/s^2. The acceleration decreases linearly with time to zero in 15 s, after which the car continues with constant speed. At what time t will the car have moved 500 m from its starting point?

Answer 1

Answer: At time 18.33 seconds it will have moved 500 meters.

Explanation:

Since the acceleration of the car is a linear function of time it can be written as a function of time as

$a(t)=5(1-\frac{t}{15})$

$a=\frac{d^{2}x}{dt^{2}}\\\\\therefore \frac{d^{2}x}{dt^{2}}=5(1-\frac{t}{15})$

Integrating both sides we get

$\int \frac{d^{2}x}{dt^{2}}dt=\int 5(1-\frac{t}{15})dt\\\\\frac{dx}{dt}=v=5t-\frac{5t^{2}}{30}+c$

Now since car starts from rest thus at time t = 0 ; v=0 thus c=0

again integrating with respect to time we get

$\int \frac{dx}{dt}dt=\int (5t-\frac{5t^{2}}{30})dt\\\\x(t)=\frac{5t^{2}}{2}-\frac{5t^{3}}{90}+D$

Now let us assume that car starts from origin thus D=0

thus in the first 15 seconds it covers a distance of

$x(15)=2.5\times 15^{2}-\farc{15^{3}}{18}=375m$

Thus the remaining 125 meters will be covered with a constant speed of

$v(15)=5\times 15-\frac{15^{2}}{6}=37.5m/s$

in time equalling $t_{2}=\frac{125}{37.5}=3.33seconds$

Thus the total time it requires equals 15+3.33 seconds

t=18.33 seconds