A spring with a constant of #12 (kg)/s^2# is lying on the ground with one end attached to a wall. An object with a mass of #8 kg# and speed of #12 m/s# collides with and compresses the spring until it stops moving. How much will the spring compress?

1 Answer
Feb 26, 2018

Well,here,during the compression,the kinetic energy of the object is transferred to the spring which is stored in it as elastic potential energy.

So,we can say, #1/2 K x^2 = 1/2 mv^2# (where, #K# is the spring constant, #m# is the mass of the object, #v# is the velocity of the object and #x# is the amount of compression)

So,putting the given values we get,

#x^2 =96#

or, #x=9.8 m#