Almost rolling motion: An investigation of rolling grooved cylinders
Abstract
We examine the dynamics of cylinders that are grooved to form N teeth for rolling motion down an inclined plane. The grooved cylinders are experimentally found to reach a terminal velocity. This result can be explained by the inclusion of inelastic processes which occur whenever a tooth hits the surface. The fraction of the angular velocity that is lost during an inelastic collision is phenomenologically found to be proportional to (2*sin^2*pi/N)-(alpha*sin^3*pi/N), and the method of least squares is used to find the constant alpha=0.98. The adjusted theoretical results for the time of rolling as well as for terminal velocity are found to be in good agreement with the experimental results.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.physics/0606254,
title = {Almost rolling motion: An investigation of rolling grooved cylinders},
author = {Lawrence R. Mead and Frank W. Bentrem},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0606254},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
8 pages, 6 figures http://link.aip.org/link/?AJPIAS/66/202/1