How do you measure the force of a falling sledgehammer?

Answer 1

Thanks for the clarification in the discussion. First: you don't really want force. The force is measured in newtons, and is the same whether you drop the hammer only a short distance or from the roof of the highest building you can get to. You really want to know the kinetic energy, which will be measured in joules, since that's what depends on the height. So: enough blather. How do you find these things? The easiest way is to weigh the sledgehammer. If you've got a scale that shows newtons, congratulations. If not, but you can find one that shows kilograms, then just multiply the mass of the hammer in kilograms by the acceleration due to gravity (9.8 meters per second per second) to find newtons. Suppose your sledgehammer has a mass of 4.0 kg. Multiply by 9.8 m/s/s to get 39 N. Once you know the force acting on the hammer, you can use that to calculate the kinetic energy. That's just the force in newtons multiplied by the height (in meters) you drop the hammer from. To make it simple, let's suppose it's being dropped from 1.0 meter. The force is then 39 N * 1.0 m = 39 J.