Position of left support
0 cm 45 cm
20
Position of right support
55 cm 100 cm
80
Position of 20-newton box
0 cm 100 cm
50
Weight of the beam
10 N 40 N
20
Check here to show the center of mass
Check here to add the 20-newton box

Worksheet for this simulation by Brandon Wiles of Sante Fe College (July 7, 2024)

The simulation shows a beam resting on two triangular supports. There is a second copy below that, showing the free-body diagram of the beam. The beam in the free-body diagram will turn red if the situation is unstable, indicating that the beam is in danger of tipping over. (That can only happen when the 20-newton box is added, and positioned in a particular range of positions.) Note that you should see four sliders and two checkboxes. One checkbox turns on the center of mass, so a purple dot is shown at the location of the center of mass. The other checkbox places a 20-newton box on the beam, at a location determined by one of the sliders.


Creative Commons License
This work by Andrew Duffy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This simulation can be found in the collection at http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/classroom.html.

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