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Use your brain power 1.3.3 (group 2) · Q1

Q.If friction is zero, can a vehicle move on the road? Why are we not considering the friction in deriving the expression for the banking angle?

Maharashtra MsbshseTextbookSubjectiveImportance★★★★★
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✓ Free question

Zero friction stops propulsion, not coasting; and banking is DESIGNED to make turning friction-free at the chosen speed, so friction is ignored on purpose in Eq. (1.2).

Propulsion, braking and steering on a road all come from friction at the tyre–road contact: with μ = 0 the wheels would spin in place and the vehicle could not set itself into motion (nor stop — an already-moving vehicle would keep coasting by inertia). So 'can it move?' — it cannot DRIVE, though it can coast. In the banking derivation friction is intentionally ignored, for two reasons. First, the engineering goal: real roads cannot rely on friction (it drops when wet/oily and varies from tyre to tyre), so the bank angle is chosen to make the turn possible WITHOUT it — Nsin⁡θN\sin\theta alone supplies mv2/rmv^2/r at the design speed, giving tan⁡θ=v2/rg\tan\theta=v^2/rg. Second, the structure of the analysis: at exactly the most-safe speed, friction is genuinely zero anyway; for other speeds friction is then brought back in (Eqs. 1.3–1.4) as the correction, not the foundation.

✓Final answer

No driving is possible without friction (only coasting); and the banking angle is derived friction-free precisely because banking exists to make the turn independent of friction at the design speed.

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