Question

What is the total mechanical energy of an object falling from a height?

Answer 1

Total mechanical energy:

1. The sum of kinetic energy and potential energy of an object is its total mechanical energy.
2. Consider the following situation. Allow an object of mass m to freely fall from a height h. The potential energy is mgh and the kinetic energy is 0 at the start. It is 0 because it has no velocity. The object's total energy is therefore mgh.
3. Its potential energy will be converted to kinetic energy as it falls. If ‘v’ is the object's velocity at a particular time, the kinetic energy is $\frac{1}{2}m{v}^2$.
4. As the object continues to fall, the potential energy decreases, and the kinetic energy increases.
5. At h = 0, v will be the highest when the object is going to hit the earth. As a result, the kinetic energy would be the largest, whereas potential energy would be the least.

$$\begin{gathered} \mathrm{KE}+\mathrm{PE}=\mathrm{cons}t\mathrm{ant} \\ \frac{1}{2}{\mathrm{mv}}^2+mgh=cons\tan t \end{gathered}$$

The sum of the potential energy and kinetic energy of the object would be the same at all points.