Conservative Forces
The potential energy of a body is the energy possessed by a body by virtue of its position relative to others , stresses within it , electric charge , and other factors . Examples of mechanical potential energy are throwing a ball in air , a tightened spring etc . Work done in throwing ball and keeping spring tightened gets stored in the form of potential energy which gets converted into kinetic energy once the ball lands on the ground or the spring is released .
Similar to the above concept of mechanical potential energy , there is a concept of electrostatic potential energy which involves charges and electric field . These concepts have been explained in the following topics .
Conservative Forces
When one form of energy gets converted to another completely on application or removal of external force , the forces are said to be conservative . Examples of conservative forces are sum of kinetic and potential energies working on a body , spring and gravitational force , Coulomb force between two stationary charges , etc .