Asked by Elaine

A 20kg traffic light hangs midway on a cable between two poles 40meters apart. If the sag in the cable is .4 meters, what is the tension in each side of the cable?
Answered by bobpursley
Consider the tension in the sag part as T, then the horizontal component is T*sinTheta, and the vertical component is T cos Theta, where theta is the angle between the vertical and the wire at the center.

Now, because there are two sides, each holding half the weight, then
T cos Theta=10kg*9.8N/kg*cosTheta


but looking at the dimensions, cosTheta is .4/20

So, you can solve for tension T.
Answered by Anonymous
4900N
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