What are non conservative force?
What are non conservative force?
Non conservative forces are those forces ,which if act, there is loss of mechanical energy of a system.
Mechanical energy of a system means summation of its potential and kinetic energy.
If a stone is thrown upwards it gains potential energy, here work is being done against the gravitational force, but when the stone comes down it gains kinetic energy. The potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. Hence there is no loss of mechanical energy in this case as gravitational force is a conservative force.
Whereas for non conservative forces, there is always loss in mechanical energy associated with it. The primary cause of this lost energy is friction. Due to friction the energy is lost while work is being done by a non conservative force.The energy can be lost in form of sound, thermal energy etc.
For example if a ball is hit with a bat ,it travels in air with some kinetic energy. But the ball experiences drag force(frictional resistance) in air. The ball imparts its kinetic energy to the air and the molecules in air start to vibrate faster, this vibration causes heating of the air surrounding the ball. Hence the kinetic energy of the ball gets converted into thermal energy(heat),so there is a loss of mechanical energy(here kinetic energy) of the ball.
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