Question

A car, having an initial velocity of 10 m/s, travels along a straight track such that it accelerates at 10 m/s2 for 10 seconds, and then decelerated at 2 m/s2 for 50 seconds. Using Matlab/Octave, plot the particle's position-time graph.

Answer 1

Please find the required MATLAB script as the following:

%==========================================

clear all;
clc;

u=10;
acc=10;
t=0:10;
pos_acc = u*t+(1/2)*acc*t.^2;
v = u+acc*10;
decel = 2;
t=0:50;
pos_decel = pos_acc(11) + (v*t-(1/2)*decel*t.^2);

figure
plot([0:10],pos_acc,'-+');
hold on
plot([10:60],pos_decel,'-o');
legend('Accelerated motion','Decelerated motion');
xlabel('Time (seconds)');
ylabel('Distance travelled (meters)');
title('Position-Time graph');
grid on

%==========================================

output plot: