woodchurch science

your next assignment is about levers. a lever is a simple machine that usually consists of a rigid bar or rod that rotates about a fixed pivot point called the fulcrum (or pivot). if you apply a force to a lever it will rotate about the fulcrum. common examples of levers are seesaws, wheelbarrows, crowbars and nutcrackers. The advantage of using a lever is that with a small amount of effort, you can move a very big load. e.g. with a crowbar, a relatively small effort is applied at the end farthest from the fulcrum to lift a heavy weight that is close to the fulcrum. many common tools and instruments utilise the principle of the lever.

here’s an animation that demonstrates how the torque (force x distance)on one side of a see-saw must equal the torque on the other if the see-saw is to remain balanced.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 10th, 2006 at 3:57 pm and is filed under applied science, engineering, ks4, physics, warren, y11. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.