POTENTIAL ENERGY AND CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

Conservative Forces

A force is a conservative force if the net work it does on a particle

moving around any closed path, from an initial point and then back to that
point, is zero. Equivalently, a force is conservative if the net work it does on
a particle moving between two points does not depend on the path taken by
the particle. The gravitational force and the spring force are conservative
forces; the kinetic frictional force is a nonconservative force.

Potential Energy

A potential energy is energy that is associated with the configuration

of a system in which a conservative force acts. When the conservative force
does work W on a particle within the system, the change ∆U in the potential
energy of the system is

∆U = −W.
If the particle moves from point xi to point xf , the change in the potential
energy of the system is
Z xf
∆U = − F (x)dx.
xi

Gravitational Potential Energy

The potential energy associated with a system consisting of Earth and a

nearby particle is gravitational potential energy. If the particle moves
from height yi to height yf , the change in the gravitational potential energy
of the particle–Earth system is

∆U = mg(yf − yi ) = mg∆y.
If the reference point of the particle is set as yi = 0 and the corre-
sponding gravitational potential energy of the system is set as Ui = 0, then
the gravitational potential energy U when the particle is at any height y is

U (y) = mgy.

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Elastic Potential Energy

Elastic potential energy is the energy associated with the state of

compression or extension of an elastic object. For a spring that exerts a
spring force F = −kx when its free end has displacement x, the elastic
potential energy is
1
U (x) = kx2 .
2
The reference configuration has the spring at its relaxed length, at
which x = 0 and U = 0.

Mechanical Energy

The mechanical energy Emec of a system is the sum of its kinetic energy
K and potential energy U :

Emec = K + U.
An isolated system is one in which no external force causes energy changes.
If only conservative forces do work within an isolated system, then the me-
chanical energy Emec of the system cannot change. This principle of con-
servation of mechanical energy is written as

K 2 + U2 = K 1 + U1 ,
in which the subscripts refer to different instants during an energy trans-
fer process. This conservation principle can also be written as

∆Emec = ∆K + ∆U = 0.

Potential Energy Curves

If we know the potential energy function U (x) for a system in which a

one-dimensional force F (x) acts on a particle, we can find the force as

dU (x)
F (x) = − .
x

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 If U (x) is given on a graph, then at any value of x, the force F (x) is the
negative of the slope of the curve there and the kinetic energy of the particle
is given by

K(x) = Emec − U (x),

where Emec is the mechanical energy of the system. A turning point
is a point x at which the particle reverses its motion (there,K = 0). The
particle is in equilibrium at points where the slope of the U(x) curve is
zero (there,F (x) = 0).

Work Done on a System by an External Force

Work W is energy transferred to or from a system by means of an exter-

nal force acting on the system. When more than one force acts on a system,
their net work is the transferred energy. When friction is not involved, the
work done on the system and the change ∆Emec in the mechanical energy
of the system are equal:

W = ∆Emec = ∆K + ∆U.
When a kinetic frictional force acts within the system, then the thermal
energy Eth of the system changes. (This energy is associated with the ran-
dom motion of atoms and molecules in the system.) The work done on the
system is then

W = ∆Emec + ∆Eth .
The change ∆Eth is related to the magnitude fk of the frictional force
and the magnitude d of the displacement caused by the external force by

∆Eth = fk d.

Conservation of Energy

The total energy E of a system (the sum of its mechanical energy and
its internal energies, including thermal energy) can change only by amounts
of energy that are transferred to or from the system. This experimental fact
is known as the law of conservation of energy. If work W is done on
the system, then

W = ∆E = ∆Emec + ∆Eth + ∆Eint .

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 If the system is isolated (W = 0), this gives

∆Emec + ∆Eth + ∆Eint = 0

and

Emec,2 = Emec,1 − ∆Eth − ∆Eint ,

where the subscripts 1 and 2 refer to two different instants.

Power

The power due to a force is the rate at which that force transfers energy.
If an amount of energy ∆E is transferred by a force in an amount of time
∆t, the average power of the force is

∆E
Pavg =.
∆t
The instantaneous power due to a force is

dE
P = .
dt