If you have a known speed that a vehicle is traveling and known skid distance to impact, would it be possible to come up with an impact speed by simply subtracting the energy used in braking the known distance from the energy the vehicle had from traveling at the known speed.
I can't find in any published materials where this would be acceptable.
why get involved with the energy loss? Why not calculate the speed lost during skidding from the initial speed which is apparently known. Looking at the post, are you asking if it is theoretically possible to do the calculation and the answer is yes, or are you asking of it is a favoured method and then perhaps the better asnwer is No.
So long as you have the entire system in some units for kinetic energy, then you can linearly sum it all up and break it apart. So, yes, you can do that.
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Regards, Johnathan
"Ending a sentence with a preposition is a situation up with which I shall not put." - Sir Winston Churchill
BlueB..........good point, I don't know why it was done that way. I am reviewing work from someone else. They only gave conclusions and no math work was shown. This was the only way I came up with the same answers they did.
If anybody else has ever used this method, please let me know.
