If one pound can hold three pounds, it’s called a three to one mechanical advantage, et cetera, et cetera. If one pound can hold two pounds, it’s called a two to one mechanical advantage. As an example, if one pound of weight can move or hold steady one pound of load, or if one pound can hold one pound, that’s called a one to one mechanical advantage. And it can be given in this simple equation.įor us. Just simply as a definition is a relationship between how much load can be moved and how much force it takes to move it. Let’s talk about what mechanical advantage is. Now, pulleys can create mechanical advantage. All this does is change the direction of the force. The flexible material that we’re going to use is a rope. What does a pulley do? A pulley simply changes the direction of a flexible material. A pulley is a wheel with a string around it. This is what we get to work with, pulleys. Now, what’s a wheel? As it turns out, a wheel is a circular lever.
The distance though, the distance, the force traveled, that’s what changed. This is going to be a common theme, or it has been thus far from what I’ve talked about. Didn’t create energy, but what changed? How could this one ounce now hold five ounces? What changed? One ounce is now going to hold five ounces. One ounce is now holding three ounces.Īll right, let’s continue more. Now one ounce is holding two ounces in balance. No? One ounce is holding one ounce in balance. This is the fulcrum, and hopefully I can balance this. Simple machine, for example, a teeter totter. So there’s a price to pay with this mechanical advantage stuff. Compared to a screw, it goes in equally as fine, but what’s the difference? What is a screw, but an incline plane wrapped around a nail? If you have a nail, takes a great force perhaps to pound it into wood. Let me give you another example of an incline plane, a screw. Now what’s the difference between the load moving from here to here? From here to here? (see below) It takes a lot of work to move this weight straight up. What do those simple machines do? They just simply decrease the force required to move a load. Some of the simple machines, for example, are… Now, man makes simple machines to create this mechanical advantage.