Question

A 1,273-kg car traveling 17.25 m/s makes a head-on collision with a 2,073-kg van traveling 27.59 m/s in the opposite direction. The collision takes place on slick ice, and the vehicles stick together after the collision. Determine the final speed of the car/van combination in m/s. Leave your answer to two decimal places, and do not include the units because Canvas does not allow units in the final answer for numerical questions.

Answer 1

Let us assume the 2073 kg van is moving in a positive direction, that leaves us the car to be moving in the negative direction.

The initial momentum of the system thus is

Now, when they are stuck together, the combined mass of the two vehicles is

.

And the final momentum of the system can be given by

Conservation of the momentum gives us

So, the answer to this problem is 10.53.