2 On a building site, a pulley system is used for moving small amounts of material up to roof level. A light pulley, which can rotate freely, is attached with its axis horizontal to the top of some scaffolding. A light inextensible rope hangs over the pulley with a counterweight of mass \(m _ { 1 } \mathrm {~kg}\) attached to one end. Attached to the other end of the rope is a bag of negligible mass into which \(m _ { 2 } \mathrm {~kg}\) of roof tiles are placed, where \(m _ { 2 } < m _ { 1 }\). This situation is shown in Fig. 2.
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\caption{Fig. 2}
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Initially the system is held at rest with the rope taut, the counterweight at the top of the scaffolding and the bag of tiles on the ground. When the counterweight is released, the bag ascends towards the top of the scaffolding. At time \(t \mathrm {~s}\) the velocity of the counterweight is \(v \mathrm {~m} \mathrm {~s} ^ { - 1 }\) downwards.
The counterweight is made from a bag of negligible mass filled with sand. At the moment the counterweight is released, this bag is accidentally ripped and after this time the sand drops out at a constant rate of \(\lambda \mathrm { kg } \mathrm { s } ^ { - 1 }\).
- Find the equation of motion for the counterweight while it still contains sand, and hence show that
$$v = g t + \frac { 2 g m _ { 2 } } { \lambda } \ln \left( 1 - \frac { \lambda t } { m _ { 1 } + m _ { 2 } } \right) .$$
- Given that the sand would run out after 10 seconds and that \(m _ { 2 } = \frac { 4 } { 5 } m _ { 1 }\), find the maximum velocity attained by the counterweight towards the ground. You may assume that the scaffolding is sufficiently high that the counterweight does not hit the ground before this velocity is reached.