Question

I found A and B. I am stuck on C and D

A block of mass 48 kg slides along a frictionless table with a speed of 94 m/s. Directly in front of it, and moving in the opposite direction with a speed of 50 m/s, is a block of mass 76 kg. A massless spring with spring constant 1331 N/m is attached to the second block as in the figure.

A.) Before the 48 kg block makes contact with the spring, what is the velocity of the center of mass of the system? Answer in units of m/s. 5.74

B.) During the collision, the spring is compressed by a maximum amount ∆x. What is this maximum compression? Answer in units of m.   21.41

C.) The blocks will eventually separate again. What is the final velocity of the 48 kg block? Answer in units of m/s.

D.) What is the final velocity of the 76 kg block? Answer in units of m/s.

Answer 1

There are two formulas for elastic head-on collisions to calculate the resulting velocity of each object (Part C and D):

This formula works for either head-on collisions or collisions where one object is catching to another you just need to use positive/negative velocity if the object is moving left or right. Now all we have to do is solve each equation with the given values and we will have our answer. (Note: There was no image uploaded so im assuming that m₁=48Kg is going right while m₂=76Kg is going left if the answer is not right use the formula but with the values for the case as it should be)

That is Answer C

That is Answer D