Please help me with a worded response.I understand that more HP = more work comp
ID: 1950125 • Letter: P
Question
Please help me with a worded response.I understand that more HP = more work completed etc however not sure how to write this in regards to a compact vehicle.
In the prevsious coneptual problem I wrote the following...and would like to build on that:
A car consumes the most gas as it accelerates simply due to laws of physics; force equals mass times acceleration and due to inherent inertia a moving car does not require much gasoline to keep moving. On the road/real life this means, to improve your mileage you need to keep the ride smooth.
Explanation / Answer
You are on the exact right track, more power means that more work can be done in a given amount of time. Remember that work and energy are the same thing so all a higher power engine allows you to do is to add kinetic energy to the car faster. Once the car is at a set speed, the only power the engine needs to supply is to overcome wind resistance and internal friction. A smaller car has a low mass which means that less energy is needed to get the car up to a certain speed than for a heavier car. Additionally unless you are trying to give the compact car exceptional acceleration such as for a sports car, or unless you want to be able to overcome the high wind resistance that you would encounter if going much faster than 65 mph, 130 HP is more than enough power for the cars needs. On an environmental note as well, a higher power engine would have more mass and while it may be able to provide more power to the car, it would overall require greater gas input as the car would weigh more overall.