Mechanical Energy

So far

 We have seen that energy can come from a variety of sources

 Elastic: Stored in an object due to its compression or extension
 Electrical: ordered movement of electrons
 Thermal: random motion of particles in a substance
 Radiation: contained and transported in electromagnetic waves
 Chemical: stored in molecular bonds
 Wind: the movement of air
 Sound: transported by sound waves
 Hydraulic: the flow of water
 Nuclear: stored in atomic nuclei
Energy

 Each type of energy in the previous list is

associated to either storage or movement.
 This leads us to two important energetic
categories:
 Kinetic energy
 Potential energy
Kinetic energy

 Kineticenergy is the energy an object

possesses due to its motion.
 The kinetic energy of an object is related
to its mass (how heavy it is) and its
velocity (how fast it is moving).
𝟏
𝑬𝒌 = 𝒎𝒗𝟐
𝟐
Potential Energy

 Potential energy is the energy stored within an object.

 Gravitational potential energy is the energy reserve of
an object based on its mass (how heavy it is) and its
height (how high it is) above a reference surface (most
often the ground, or whatever surface would break the
fall).

𝑬𝒑 = 𝒎𝒈𝒉
Mechanical energy

 Mechanical energy is the relationship

between kinetic and potential energy. It is
actually the sum of the two.

𝑬𝒎 = 𝑬𝒌 + 𝑬𝒑
Maximum height
Ek = 0% A ball held at a certain height has no kinetic
energy since it is not in movement.
Ep = 100% Meanwhile, being held at a certain height, it
Em = Ek + Ep = 100% has all (100%) of its potential energy.

The ball is dropped and falls

50% of the height to the ground.

Ek = 50% At half the height, half of the potential

Ep = 50% energy has been converted to kinetic
Em = Ek + Ep = 100% energy.

The ball falls the rest of the

distance to the ground.

Ek = 100%
At the ground, all the potential energy
Ground

Ep = 0% has been converted to kinetic energy.

Em = Ek + Ep = 100%
Maximum height
Ek = 1/2mv2 A ball held at a certain height has no kinetic
energy since v = 0 m/s
Ep = mgh Meanwhile, being held at a certain height, it
Em = Ek + Ep = 100% has all of its potential energy since h > 0 m

The ball is dropped and falls

50% of the height to the ground.

Ek = 1/2mv2 At half the height, h has decreased so

Ep = mgh potential energy has decreased while v
Em = Ek + Ep = 100% has increased since the ball is now
falling.

The ball falls the rest of the

distance to the ground.

Ek = 1/2mv2
At the ground, now h = 0 m so potential is
Ground

Ep = mgh all gone but the ball is going as fast as it

Em = Ek + Ep = 100% will get with a maximum value of v.
Energy Efficiency

 The percentage of energy consumed by a machine or

system that was transformed into useful energy.
𝑨𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒚 (𝒌𝑱)
𝑬𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒚 𝑬𝒇𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 % = × 𝟏𝟎𝟎
𝑨𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒚 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒆𝒅 (𝒌𝑱)

 Very few if any systems are perfectly (100%) efficient. In

other words, where every bit of energy put into the
system goes towards completing the desired action. A
proportion of energy is often transformed into a useless
form like heat (unless heat is what you wanted of
course).
Energy Efficiency

 In technology, a large proportion of research and

development goes towards finding ways to make
machines more energy efficient.

 Figure 3.3 of the Observatory manual demonstrates very

effectively how energy efficient a gasoline burning car
actually is. If we assume that the main goal of the
potential energy of the gasoline is to make the car move
forward, we see that only 12% of this energy goes
towards completing the action of forward movement.