Question
Question: Hydraulic jack works according to ……… (Pascal’s, Newton’s) law....
Hydraulic jack works according to ……… (Pascal’s, Newton’s) law.
Solution
A hydraulic jack is a device that is used to lift a weight and is controlled with hydraulic control. This hydraulic control consists of a cylinder and piston arrangement, where if pressure is applied on a small area, it is transferred to the other surface with a larger area via a cylinder. Since the pressure of a liquid remains constant throughout the volume, the weight on the other end is lifted.
Complete answer:
The hydraulic jack uses Pascal’s law for its functioning. Pascal’s law states that if in an incompressible and confined fluid, a change in pressure is caused, it causes the same amount of change in pressure throughout its volume, without any losses. This law gave way to the concept of a hydraulic jack.
In a hydraulic jack, an incompressible liquid is kept inside a confined volume, this container has two pistons attached at two ends. Both ends have different dimensions, one of them is small and the other one is large.
The large end is the side which is connected to the arm of the jack and lifts the weights. The other end has a smaller surface area and a force is applied to this side.
The pressure is defined as force per unit area. Therefore, if a body has two endpoints with different areas, say A1 and A2
Such that A1<A2
Then, According to Pascal’s law,
P1=P2
Which means,
A1F1=A2F2
F2=A1A2F1
Thus, the lifting force F2 is greater than the applied force F1 . This is the principle behind a hydraulic jack.
Note:
The lifting force of a hydraulic jack is proportional to the ratios of the areas of both the surfaces. If the surface area, A2 is 10 times the surface area of the other end A1 , then we need to apply only 101th amount of the force required to lift an object.