Question

Some springs are wound with the wire under torsion, so that they are naturally tightly compressed. The plot of extension vs. applied force will show that the intercept on the extension axis is negative, that is, the "unstretched length" is shorter than the actual unloaded length. Explain.​

Answer 1

The "unstretched length" is shorter than the actual unloaded length because the load applied to the material caused the extension of the material thereby increasing its length.

Hooke's law

Hooke's law states that the force applied to an elastic material is directly proportional to the extension of the elastic material.

F = kx

where;

• F is the applied force
• k is the spring constant
• x is the extension

Thus, we can conclude that, the "unstretched length" is shorter than the actual unloaded length because the load applied to the material caused extension of the material thereby increasing the length of the material.

Learn more about Hooke's law here: brainly.com/question/2648431