The science behind the working of hand trucks
Perhaps the most commonly used and the simplest of all material handling equipments, used in varied areas ranging from store rooms and warehouses to train stations and airports, is the hand truck also known as two wheeled dolly or sack truck. Though available in various designs and modifications, all the hand trucks are based around the same basic design.
The hand truck operates on the principle of lever with the effort being the person pushing the truck so that it can be applied with more force to another object and the load being the boxes pushed. Levers are still considered one the six simple machines, alongside wheels and axles, pulleys, inclined planes, wedges and screws.
The hand truck is a first class lever as the pivot or the fulcrum is located between input effort and output load and the lever swings about the pivot when force is applied in order to overcome the force of resistance on the opposite side. Hand trucks are designed to put the weight burden primarily on the wheels when in use, rather than on the user.
The idea that simple machines do not create energy, they just transform it, belongs to Galileo Galilei, who noted this is in Le Maccanicle in around 1600. Of course the idea of levers had been around long before Galileo. Archimedes of Syracuse is said to have had a great understanding of and belief in the lever.
Though hand trucks and similar material handling products are used every day by companies and other organizations throughout the world, but the physics behind it is rarely considered. The hand truck is an example of a basic lever that is still widely used today. Besides being environmentally friendly, they are cheaper, simple to use and durable.
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