What Is Nuclear Force?

Forces acting inside the nucleus are called nuclear forces. There are three kinds of nuclear forces including electrostatic force, strong nuclear forces and gravitational forces. Nucleus contains charged particles, known as protons. Each proton has a positive charge. Because of this charge a coulomb repulsive force exists between the protons. This force varies inversely as square of distance between the protons. Coulomb force is also known as electrostatic force.

The force which keeps all the nucleons together is called strong nuclear forces. This force is responsible for the formation of nucleus. This force is also known as short range attractive force or Yukawa force. Nuclear force is independent of mass and charge of the particles inside it.

Due to the masses of nucleons, a gravitational force is present between them (mass-mass attraction). But due to small masses of the nucleons, this force is negligible small.