You are performing a knee extension exercise. You hold a 20kg weight at full knee extension. The weight is 0.4m from your knee joint. What is the moment created by the weight about your knee? Ignore the mass of the leg. Include the units and the direction of the moment (i. e., positive for counterclockwise, negative for clockwise).

The moment is -78.4 N-m (clockwise).

Explanation:

Given:

Mass of the object (m) = 20 kg

Distance of the object from the knee joint (d) = 0.4 m

Weight of leg is not considered.

Acceleration due to gravity (g) = 9.8 m/s²

Now, weight of the object is equal to the product of its mass and acceleration due to gravity. So,

Weight = Mass × Acceleration due to gravity

            =

We know that, moment of a force about a point is defined as the product of force applied and the perpendicular distance between the point and the line of application of force.

Moment of the given weight about the knee joint is given as:

Moment about knee joint = Weight × Distance from knee joint to weight

Moment about knee joint = 196 × 0.4 = 78.4 Nm

Now, from the diagram below, we can observe that, the weight acts vertically down and thus the sense of rotation about the knee joint at point O is clockwise. So, moment is negative.

Therefore, the moment is -78.4 N-m (clockwise).

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