What role does friction play in acceleration?

Question

dragsters often set their tires on fire to soften the rubber and increase the coefficient of friction to nearly 5.0. What role does friction play in accelerating the dragster?

Answer 1

It helps them, the dragster has so much power that without friction it would spin indefinitely. The more friction you have, the quicker you will go foward and not spin in place.

Answer 2

I don't have the patience to read the novel you have put up after your question, but I can definitely tell you what role friction plays in deciding whether the wheel rolls or skids on the surface of the road. Friction is a self adjusting force, which means that its values change continuously from nothing to a point where you have applied more force to the object than the friction can counter, and that is when the object starts to move, and then friction applies a steady force. On the road, the rolling or skidding depends on the normal force provided by the earth onto the wheel, which in turn depends on the weight of the car on each wheel. If the above system is heavy enough, kinetic friction comes into play, meaning that mathematically, your product of the coefficient of friction and the normal force becomes the frictional force that is applied on the wheel, whereas until this critical point where enough normal force is achieved, the value of friction is always less than the above mentioned scalar product. Now, sliding means that the point of contact on the mentioned surface does not have any relative velocity with respect to the surface, and if there is no relative velocity then there can be no friction, because the contact point does have anything to accelerate on. Such as it is, you car will slide on ice, because friction is negligible, but will roll on gravel, because friction is present. I hope that answers the better part of your question, the rest is just applying the concept I have enumerated in the above passage. Good luck, Ayerhs.

Answer 3

And that giant wing that pushes down almost 25,000 pounds at 300 miles an hour the leingth of the fuel dragster is all designed to put as much weight on the rear tires so traction friction can be better. The speed of the rear tires can spin make them grow as much as two feet. Several bad rear tire explosions almost killed John Force and killed Eric Medilin this year wer'e just about to the max friction a air filled rubber tire can take. And the inverse is true in the engine and rear axle they want almost no friction in those parts. Friction Clutches several kinds apply at different times during the 3.5 second run to maximize tire friction to engine torque and rpm's. You picked a good example.

Answer 4

Without friction the Dragster would not be able to really start, think about ice, that has minimal friction so things are hard to start on ice. Without friction we would be slipping and sliding all over the place. And yes, it also slows it down.

Answer 5

Friction is the force that opposes motion. One could say in that case that it decreases acceleration. However in the case cited, they need the friction to push against the pavement to start the dragster in motion. So it enables the acceleration.

Answer 6

Think about it.

Tires use friction to grip the surface on which the vehiicle is operating Brakes use friction to slow and stop the circular motion of the wheels and other parts.

Answer 7

it slows the dragster down

Answer 8

well frition is makeing the accerating stay in place but the tirs get all the haet and goes on fire yad yada yada