In: Physics
why the longer the distance a force is applied from the fulcrum the greater the output force. I want to know how this works exactly and how does a larger distance affects the amount if work done by the force. does it has to do with the input force traveling longer vertically some how creating a greater output? So far I've just gotten very general information I hope you can help me to understand this more deeply thank you.
Let us consider a lever where the there is a load force at point A, the fulcrum is at point B and the force is applied at point C.
Fl is the load force which is the force output, Fi is the input force. Let us say that the Fl is at a distance xl from point B and Fi is at a distance xi from point B. In the case when the load force is equal to the input force, the system will be in static equilibrium, therefore we can say that the total moment of the system will be zero, ie. the moment produced due to load force and the input force will be equal hence we can write,
We can calculate the load from this equation as,
Here we can say that the the load force will increase as the distance xi will increase, ie. the maximum load which a particular input force can take will increase as the distance increases. This is due to the fact that as the distance increases the moment produced by the force increases, and hence we can use small forces at big distances to move objects with higher load at smaller distance from fulcrum.