A roller coaster uses 800 000 J of energy to get to the top of the first hill. During this climb, it gains 500 000 J of potential energy and pauses for a fraction of a second at the very top before heading down the other side. At the top of the hill total, the kinetic energy of the roller coaster would be zero as the velocity is zero at the top of the hill, therefore the total mechanical energy is only because of potential energy.
What is mechanical energy?
Mechanical energy is the combination of all the energy in motion represented by total kinetic energy and the total stored energy in the system which is represented by total potential energy.
The expression for total mechanical energy is as follows
ME= KE+PE
As total mechanical energy is the sum of all the kinetic as well as potential energy stored in the system.As given in the problem a roller coaster uses 800000 J of energy to get to the top of the first hill. During this climb, it gains 500 000 J of potential energy which means 300000 J of energy is lost in the frictional energy while climbing the hill,
Thus at the top of the hill, the total energy of the roller coasters is only due to the potential energy.
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