RESULTANT AND DIRECTION OF FORCES

A Report Submitted for the Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirement of Grade 11 Science in
Mathematics

By
Slesha Rawal
Grade XI, Section DA1, ID no: 23255

Trinity International SS and College

Dillibazar Height, Nepal

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 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the work presented in this

project report has been done by myself under the
supervision of Mr. Damodar Khanal and has not
been submitted elsewhere for any examination.
All the sources of information have been specifically
acknowledged by reference to authors.

Date: August 2021 Slesha Rawal

Registration no: 783270071589

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 LETTER OF APPROVAL

The project work submitted to Trinity International

SS, by Slesha Rawal entitled “Resultant and
Direction of forces” has been approved as the partial
fulfillment of the requirements of internal evaluation

Date: August 2021 Mr. Damodar Khanal

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 Acknowledgement

Taken this opportunity to express my respect and gratitude to my

esteemed guide Mr. Damodar Khanal for his valuable guidance in

making this project a reality. I am thankful to him for his constant

and encouragement and valuable supervision, guidance and

throughout this project completion period.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………1-2
1.1: General Background…………………1
1.2: Objective of the study………………2
CHAPTER 2: MATERIALS AND METHODS………….3-6
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND CONCLUSION………….7
CHAPTER 5: REFRENCES……………………………………8

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1: General Background
Aristotle famously represented a force as anything that causes an object
to undergo “unnatural motion”. Sir Isaac Newton was one of the first
scientists to study gravity and force. Any kind of force is just a push or a
pull. It can be described as a push or pull on an object. Force is an external
agent capable of changing the state of rest or motion of a particular
body. It has a magnitude and a direction. Thus, it is a vector quantity. The
direction towards which the force is applied is known as the direction of
the force and the application of force is the point where force is applied.
The resultant force is described as the total amount of force acting on
the object or body along with the direction of the body. The resultant
force is zero when the object is at rest or it is traveling with the same
velocity as the object. The resultant force should be equal for all the force
since all the force is acting in the same direction. A resultant force is the
combination of two or more single forces. The parallelogram law,
triangle rule and polygon rule are geometric methods to find the force
resultant.
Problem:

Let two forces P and Q acting at a point, 𝜃 be angle between them. Make the different

choice of P, Q and 𝜃 to answer the followings:

a) Find the resultant of the forces

b) What and in which direction must a third force be applied at the same point so that the

system is in equilibrium.

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1.2: Objectives
 To find the resultant of two forces P and Q.
 To know the direction of the third force when the system of
three forces are in equilibrium.
 To establish zero net force.

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 CHAPTER 2: MATERIALS AND METHODS

i. Materials required:

a) Scale, pencils

b) Sheet of paper

ii. Theory:

Statement: If the two vectors are represented by two sides of a

triangle taken in same order then the resultant vector is given by the
third side of the triangle taken in opposite direction.

𝑅 which is the resultant of the sum of vectors ⃗⃗⃗

To obtain ⃗⃗⃗ 𝐴 and
⃗⃗⃗
𝐵 with the same order of magnitude and direction as shown in the
figure, we use the following rule: ⃗⃗⃗ ⃗⃗⃗ ⃗⃗⃗
𝐴 +𝐵 =𝑅
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iii. Procedure

Let two forces 𝑃 ⃗⃗⃗ be the two forces that are represented in the
⃗⃗⃗ and 𝑄
order of magnitude and direction by the sides OA and AB, respectively
of the triangle OAB making the angle Θ . Let ⃗⃗⃗ 𝑅 be the resultant of
𝑃 and ⃗⃗⃗
vectors ⃗⃗⃗ 𝑄.

Fig: Resultant of two using forces triangle law of vector addition

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From triangle OCB,
OB2 = OC2 + BC2

OB2 = (OA+AC)2 + BC2 ………………. (eqn. 1)

⃗⃗⃗
⃗⃗⃗ and 𝑄
In triangle ACB with ϴ as the angle between 𝑃
𝐴𝐶
cosΘ =
𝐴𝐵

AC = ABcosΘ
=QcosΘ
𝐵𝐶
sinΘ =
𝐴𝐵

BC = ABsinΘ
= QsinΘ

Substituting the values of AC and BC in (eqn.1), we get

R2 = (P+QcosΘ)2 + (QsinΘ)2

R2 = P2 + 2PQcosΘ + Q2cos2Θ + Q2sin2Θ

R2 = P2 + 2PQcosΘ + Q2

Therefore,

𝑅 = √P2 + 2PQcosΘ + Q2

Above equation is the magnitude of the resultant vector.

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EXPLANATION

A solid body submitted to three forces whose lines of action are not
parallel is in equilibrium if the three following conditions apply:
 The lines of action are coplanar (in the same plane)
 The lines of action are convergent (they cross at the same point)
 The vector sum of these forces is equal to the zero vector.

𝑃 and ⃗⃗⃗
If two forces are ⃗⃗⃗ 𝑄 with angle Θ between them and according
to the triangle law of vector addition, ⃗⃗⃗
𝑅 is the resultant.

According to the above mentioned equation,

𝑅 = √P2 + 2PQcosΘ + Q2

Now, for the equilibrium, the third force should be of equal

magnitude as ⃗⃗⃗
𝑅 and opposite in direction.

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 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

When an object is subject to several forces, the resultant force

is the force that alone produces the same acceleration as all
those forces. The reason why the resultant force is useful is
that it allows us to think about several forces as though they
were a single force. This means that to determine the effect
that several forces have on an object, we only need to
determine the effect that a single force has.

Likewise, If the net force is equal to zero, the object is said to

be in equilibrium. Because there is no net force acting on an
object in equilibrium, then from Newton's first law of motion,
the object continues to move at a constant speed.

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 CHAPTER 5: REFRENCES

Internet www.phyley.com

Internet www.byju’s.com

Internet www.grc.nasa.com

Verma, H.C., 2007, Concepts of Physics

Mathematics text book of grade 11