An artist is setting up a modern art sculpture consisting of a vertical column of identical rectangular stone tiles on a flat showroom floor.
There are 12 tiles in the stack. The weight of each tile is 35 N. The surface area of the flat base of each tile is 0.040 m^2.
(i) State the equation linking pressure, force, and area.
(ii) Calculate the pressure on the floor caused by the stack of tiles.
The artist then decides to rearrange the exhibition and lays all 12 tiles flat on the showroom floor, none of them overlapping.
(i) Describe how this affects the total force exerted by the tiles on the floor.
(ii) Explain how this affects the average pressure on the areas of the floor in contact with the tiles.
44 exam-style questions on Edexcel IGCSE Physics Density and pressure. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.