Trig Word Problem

johnnelson

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Nov 24, 2013
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Three tugboats A, B and C are towing a disabled oil tanker. If tugboat A is pulling at 5000
pounds of force, tugboat B is pulling at 10,000 pounds of force and tugboat C is pulling at
15,000 pounds of force and the angles between then are shown below, What direction with
respect to tugboat A is the oil tanker moving, and what is the force along that resultant.

I understand when using two forces pulling but I don't understand how to combine three. I tried adding the components of the vectors to find the magnitude and direction.
 
Three tugboats A, B and C are towing a disabled oil tanker. If tugboat A is pulling at 5000
pounds of force, tugboat B is pulling at 10,000 pounds of force and tugboat C is pulling at
15,000 pounds of force and the angles between then are shown below, What direction with
respect to tugboat A is the oil tanker moving, and what is the force along that resultant.

I understand when using two forces pulling but I don't understand how to combine three. I tried adding the components of the vectors to find the magnitude and direction.

This is vector addition and your method (adding the components of the vectors to find the magnitude and direction) should be correct.

If you want us to "fix" any mistake that you may have - you'll need to share your work with us - including a rough sketch depicting the vectors.
 
tug boats

I ended up with 31.02 degrees direction, and magnitude of 777.94#. is this correct?
 
This is vector addition and your method (adding the components of the vectors to find the magnitude and direction) should be correct.

If you want us to "fix" any mistake that you may have - you'll need to share your work with us - including a rough sketch depicting the vectors.

Here is pic of calculations. and I found that my previous calculation was wrong.
 

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