Forces Acting on a Ladder
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A man of weight (blue arrow) climbs a ladder of length and weight placed against a wall at an angle . Vary the height of the ladder to see the forces acting on this system.
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Contributed by: Enrique Zeleny (September 2008)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
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Since the ladder is in static equilibrium, the condition for equilibrium on the forces is , and for torques is
.
The minimum coefficient of friction required is
.
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